We are proud to welcome Will Garrett, Agency Sales Manager of Missouri Farm Bureau Insurance as our partner and sponsor. When you’re looking for in-depth analysis of everything happening at Mizzou, Monday Morning Thoughts is the place to go. When you’re looking for an in-depth review of your insurance policies, Will Garrett is who you need. Born and raised a Tiger fan, Will is proud of his hometown and takes pride in protecting his community, and the people in it. The time to prepare for tomorrow is today. Find Will in his office just south of Faurot Field! Click here to get in touch with Will and start the process.
1) Happy long weekend, which I assume all of you are enjoying a bit more than Steve Bieser. In case you missed it, Missouri fired Bieser as its baseball coach Sunday. He was here for seven seasons without an NCAA Tournament appearance. If that's the standard going forward, it's going to be tough. As I've said all season, I'm not going to argue too vehemently that the decision was unfair. But I also don't really know that it changes anything.
Who Missouri hires matters far less than how Missouri approaches baseball going forward. Do you want to approach it like an SEC program or do you simply want to be a program that happens to play in the SEC? There are 14 baseball programs in this league. Thirteen of them have somewhat regular College World Series hopes. Then there's Missouri. Here are the number of CWS appearances for every school in the league, including the most recent appearance
Alabama: 5 (1999)
Arkansas: 11 (2022)
Auburn: 6 (2022)
Florida: 12 (2018)
Georgia: 6 (2008)
Kentucky: 0
LSU: 18 (2017)
Mississippi State: 12 (2021)
Mizzou: 6 (1964)
Ole Miss 6 (2022)
South Carolina: 11 (2012)
Tennessee: 5 (2021)
Texas A&M: 7 (2022)
Vanderbilt: 5 (2021)
Eleven of the 14 teams in the league have made the CWS this century. Seven have made it in the last two years, nine in the last five. The only team without an appearance, Kentucky, is No. 2 in the country and will be favored to get there this year. Eight SEC teams are hosting regionals this year, a tournament record.
You want to compete in that league? It takes a complete overhaul of how you approach the sport, not just a coaching change.
2) So what does Mizzou need to do?
Sure a new stadium is going to help. Kentucky built one for $50 million four years ago. You're going to have to pay the next coach (a lot) more. Bieser was making $475,000. He was the lowest paid coach in the league. The second lowest was Brad Bohannon at Alabama before he got fired, which probably not coincidentally is the program with the second-longest CWS drought in the league (also might explain why he might have been involved trying to pick up a few extra bucks gambling on games). Kentucky's coach was making $575,000 at last report and I'm sure is due a raise. South Carolina's is at $600,000 and Georgia just fired Scott Stricklin, who was making $655,000. Everybody else in the league makes a million or more.
You ready to throw that kind of money at baseball? Second question, does it make any sense for Missouri to throw that kind of money at baseball? The Tigers aren't exactly the most cash-loaded team in this league. If that kind of money is going to be spent on baseball, to me, it can only be because Dennis Gates and Eli Drinkwitz have told you "We're good, I can't think of one other single thing we might possibly spend a dollar on."
But to me, you don't fire Bieser if you aren't willing to make that kind of investment. I wouldn't have done either of those things.
3) But Missouri did, so the question is what's next?
I'm not going to pretend to follow college baseball closely and have a pulse on the coaching market. Below are some names to watch that have been floated to me by people who know a hell of a lot more about it than I do.
Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs
Tennessee associate head coach Josh Elander
Maryland head coach Rob Vaughn
Iowa head coach Rick Heller
Memphis head coach Kerrick Jackson
Minnesota Twins bench coach Jayce Tingler
I don't know if any of these people would be interested in the job. I don't know if any would be a significant upgrade over Steve Bieser. But Missouri's already fired Bieser so it has to hire someone in his place.
4) At some point this week, we're going to find out whether the SEC will play eight or nine conference football games once Oklahoma and Texas join the league. There was quite a bit of momentum for nine and now it seems to have shifted to eight, largely because Nick Saban isn't very happy that Alabama is (reportedly) slated to get Auburn, Tennessee and LSU. First, let's say that Saban isn't the only one who doesn't really want to go to nine. Second, the talk about the SEC has always been that the reason it works is because everybody gets together and holds hands and sings Kumbaya unlike, say, any conference Texas has ever been a part of. If that's true, who cares what 70-year-old Nick Saban wants? Take a vote. He can vote however he wants. And his vote is one of 14, no more or less important than any other. Third, this all might be posturing and incorrect and we might get nine games anyway.
All that said, I do understand Saban's point. Why should Bama get three teams that traditionally are in the top half of the league and Missouri gets to play both Arkansas and Vanderbilt every year (that was the floated plan)? There's nothing equatable about that. Bama has to play Auburn. It pretty much has to play Tennessee (that rivalry being protected is a large part of why Mizzou entered in the East to begin with). So Bama's third should probably be someone like Mississippi State, Mizzou or South Carolina, a less traditional power in the league than LSU. This isn't the NFL where the entire goal is to get everyone as close to .500 as you can. If you want to move up the standings, do it by improving, not just because you play Vandy and schedule four wins in the non-con every season.
Missouri has favored nine games. Now, how much of that is the fact that the nine game schedule would include Arkansas and Vandy (or at worst Kentucky or South Carolina)? If we're being honest, probably some. If Mizzou's scheduled rivals were Oklahoma, Texas and Georgia, I doubt Eli Drinkwitz would be quite as gung ho about the whole thing.
I'm team nine. In fact, I'm team nine and play another Power Five team in the non-con and get rid of FCS opponents. But that's because I just want to minimize the number of Saturdays we completely waste during the season. I understand why the teams and the SEC wouldn't want it that way. Regardless, we'll get our answer later this week.
Last edited:
