-- Saturday evening, 2016 Richmond (Texas) George Ranch tailback Darius Anderson publicly announced his commitment to Missouri.
He became the thirteenth confirmed commitment for the 2016 class when he did. With Butler CC (Kansas) offensive tackle Tyler Howell expected to make it to Columbia in January the Tigers technically have 14 commitments. Unfortunately PowerMizzou has been unable (despite numerous attempts) to get Howell to confirm his new arrival timeframe.
Regardless, Mizzou is approaching the end of their 2016 recruiting class. PowerMizzou anticipates that there are six spots remaining in the 2016 class. This morning we will focus on the defensive line. A minimum of two defensive tackles are expected to sign with a third being a possibility. If not true defensive tackles you could see bigger defensive ends in the mold of Terry Beckner Jr.
The most wanted defensive line targets for Missouri as of right now (that PowerMizzou is hearing about) are Boss Tagaloa, Emmit Gooden, Rashard Lawrence, Amani Bledsoe, Jovan Swann, Ross Blacklock and Darius Whitfield. There are some other players that Mizzou is still recruiting and keeping close tabs on (Marcel Southall, Isaiahh Loudermilk, Malcolm Roach, Sadarius Hutcherson), but the aforementioned seven are who we will be following closest for now.
- PowerMizzou has not been able to talk directly with Tagaloa, but we have been told that he is pretty set on taking official visits to Alabama, Michigan and UCLA. He does want to take all five of his officials so that leaves Mizzou and eight other schools fighting for two visits.
- Gooden is in a similar situation with three schools that he is pretty sure he will officially visit. They are Tennessee, Mississippi State and LSU. In this case, though, Missouri is only battling Alabama and Texas A&M for one of the final two visits.
- Lawrence has not been on PowerMizzou's radar as a legitimate Missouri target, especially since he named a top five of Ohio State, Washington, Alabama, LSU and UCLA. As you can see in his tweet, though, he has definitely left a window open for other schools to make their push.
Pat Washington is the lead recruiter for the Louisiana prospect and PowerMizzou has been told that the wide receiver coach is working very hard on the 111 ranked prospect in the country.
- Bledsoe recently trimmed his list down to six and all indications are that he will use all of his official visits.
Missouri is in good shape to land an official visit, but nothing is scheduled yet with the Tigers. Bledsoe does have officials scheduled to UCLA on September 18 and Oregon on September 25. A commitment could happen as late as signing day.
- Swann had a group of top schools earlier in the spring, but then he added an offer from Mizzou and some other schools that shook things up for the number 44 ranked defensive tackle. Over the summer he visited Missouri and was impressed with what he saw in Columbia.
He thought he would have his updated top list shortly after that, but then in early August he received an offer from Stanford which delayed him narrowing things down a little more. Swann told PowerMizzou this week that he plans to have his revised top schools in early September and then he will start setting up official visits. Mizzou is still in good shape to make the updated group of top schools.
- Blacklock released a top ten back in mid-June.
Since then he has narrowed that group down even further in interviews. Down to LSU, Texas A&M, TCU, Texas Tech and Missouri. Blacklock had talked about making a summer decision, but with his season starting tonight that will likely not be happening.
- Whitfield told PowerMizzou's southern cousin CaneSport last night that he will announce his decision on October 13. He also informed CaneSport that he has narrowed his options down to Florida, Miami, Missouri and South Carolina. Whitfield hopes to officially visit each before making a decision.
-- This should be pretty obvious by now, but PowerMizzou feels confident Drew Lock sees the field this year. We’d envision usage kind of like Chase Daniel got his freshman year. Get your feet wet, play a little bit in every game, be ready in case Maty Mauk gets hurt. Official word won’t come until Monday...and honestly may not even come then...but we will be very surprised if Lock doesn’t see action in the season opener.
Who else plays? Terez Hall, Emanuel Hall, Beckner Jr., Nate Howard, Corey Fatony, Cam Hilton and a wild card/surprise freshman. And, no we don’t know who. If we did, it wouldn’t be a surprise.
Add junior college players Marcell Frazier (who will start), Chase Abbington (who will play because he doesn’t have a redshirt year available, but may not get meaningful reps this season) and Malik Cuellar (who could start and looks to have locked up a backup spot) and you have at least nine players from the 2015 recruiting class who will see the field in year one. The most freshmen we could find that Pinkel has played in one year is seven in 2008 (Will Ebner, Michael Egnew, Blaine Gabbert, Jerrell Jackson, Andrew Jones, Wes Kemp, Jacquies Smith). Add Brian Coulter in and eight players from that class saw the field. So this class has a chance to have more players than any other under Pinkel who do not redshirt. Is that due to talent or to necessity? Maybe a little bit of both, but we’re leaning more toward the former. This has a good chance to be one of Pinkel’s best classes by the time it is done.
-- PowerMizzou has confirmed that Minnesota forward Reed Nikko will take an official visit to Missouri on the weekend of October 3rd. When we talked to Nikko a few weeks ago, Missouri was clearly his best offer. But in July he picked up an offer from home town Minnesota, and it may be tough to get him to leave his home state.
-- The major target to keep an eye on at this point in time may be Ohio prospect Willie Jackson. Jackson has four visits scheduled, starting with Temple on the weekend of September 11th. He comes to Columbia the following weekend, Boston College after that and Penn State in October. He still has one visit left if he wants to use it. Jackson told me he is working on setting up an in-home visit with the Mizzou staff, but doesn’t have it set yet. He plans to sign during the early signing period. At this point in time, we’d probably handicap him as the most likely to commit to the Tigers in the coming weeks.
-- That obviously means we wouldn’t put Tyler Cook in that discussion. Still no word from Cook’s camp and we’ve really given up on ever getting any. It was posted on the board by a subscriber earlier this week that Cook was down to Florida and Iowa. Nobody has confirmed that, but from pretty much every source we’re hearing it doesn’t look like Missouri is going to get him. It will be surprising to us if Cook never even takes an official visit, but that certainly could be a possibility at this point in time.
He became the thirteenth confirmed commitment for the 2016 class when he did. With Butler CC (Kansas) offensive tackle Tyler Howell expected to make it to Columbia in January the Tigers technically have 14 commitments. Unfortunately PowerMizzou has been unable (despite numerous attempts) to get Howell to confirm his new arrival timeframe.
Regardless, Mizzou is approaching the end of their 2016 recruiting class. PowerMizzou anticipates that there are six spots remaining in the 2016 class. This morning we will focus on the defensive line. A minimum of two defensive tackles are expected to sign with a third being a possibility. If not true defensive tackles you could see bigger defensive ends in the mold of Terry Beckner Jr.
The most wanted defensive line targets for Missouri as of right now (that PowerMizzou is hearing about) are Boss Tagaloa, Emmit Gooden, Rashard Lawrence, Amani Bledsoe, Jovan Swann, Ross Blacklock and Darius Whitfield. There are some other players that Mizzou is still recruiting and keeping close tabs on (Marcel Southall, Isaiahh Loudermilk, Malcolm Roach, Sadarius Hutcherson), but the aforementioned seven are who we will be following closest for now.
- PowerMizzou has not been able to talk directly with Tagaloa, but we have been told that he is pretty set on taking official visits to Alabama, Michigan and UCLA. He does want to take all five of his officials so that leaves Mizzou and eight other schools fighting for two visits.
- Gooden is in a similar situation with three schools that he is pretty sure he will officially visit. They are Tennessee, Mississippi State and LSU. In this case, though, Missouri is only battling Alabama and Texas A&M for one of the final two visits.
- Lawrence has not been on PowerMizzou's radar as a legitimate Missouri target, especially since he named a top five of Ohio State, Washington, Alabama, LSU and UCLA. As you can see in his tweet, though, he has definitely left a window open for other schools to make their push.
Pat Washington is the lead recruiter for the Louisiana prospect and PowerMizzou has been told that the wide receiver coach is working very hard on the 111 ranked prospect in the country.
- Bledsoe recently trimmed his list down to six and all indications are that he will use all of his official visits.
Missouri is in good shape to land an official visit, but nothing is scheduled yet with the Tigers. Bledsoe does have officials scheduled to UCLA on September 18 and Oregon on September 25. A commitment could happen as late as signing day.
- Swann had a group of top schools earlier in the spring, but then he added an offer from Mizzou and some other schools that shook things up for the number 44 ranked defensive tackle. Over the summer he visited Missouri and was impressed with what he saw in Columbia.
He thought he would have his updated top list shortly after that, but then in early August he received an offer from Stanford which delayed him narrowing things down a little more. Swann told PowerMizzou this week that he plans to have his revised top schools in early September and then he will start setting up official visits. Mizzou is still in good shape to make the updated group of top schools.
- Blacklock released a top ten back in mid-June.
Since then he has narrowed that group down even further in interviews. Down to LSU, Texas A&M, TCU, Texas Tech and Missouri. Blacklock had talked about making a summer decision, but with his season starting tonight that will likely not be happening.
- Whitfield told PowerMizzou's southern cousin CaneSport last night that he will announce his decision on October 13. He also informed CaneSport that he has narrowed his options down to Florida, Miami, Missouri and South Carolina. Whitfield hopes to officially visit each before making a decision.
-- This should be pretty obvious by now, but PowerMizzou feels confident Drew Lock sees the field this year. We’d envision usage kind of like Chase Daniel got his freshman year. Get your feet wet, play a little bit in every game, be ready in case Maty Mauk gets hurt. Official word won’t come until Monday...and honestly may not even come then...but we will be very surprised if Lock doesn’t see action in the season opener.
Who else plays? Terez Hall, Emanuel Hall, Beckner Jr., Nate Howard, Corey Fatony, Cam Hilton and a wild card/surprise freshman. And, no we don’t know who. If we did, it wouldn’t be a surprise.
Add junior college players Marcell Frazier (who will start), Chase Abbington (who will play because he doesn’t have a redshirt year available, but may not get meaningful reps this season) and Malik Cuellar (who could start and looks to have locked up a backup spot) and you have at least nine players from the 2015 recruiting class who will see the field in year one. The most freshmen we could find that Pinkel has played in one year is seven in 2008 (Will Ebner, Michael Egnew, Blaine Gabbert, Jerrell Jackson, Andrew Jones, Wes Kemp, Jacquies Smith). Add Brian Coulter in and eight players from that class saw the field. So this class has a chance to have more players than any other under Pinkel who do not redshirt. Is that due to talent or to necessity? Maybe a little bit of both, but we’re leaning more toward the former. This has a good chance to be one of Pinkel’s best classes by the time it is done.
-- PowerMizzou has confirmed that Minnesota forward Reed Nikko will take an official visit to Missouri on the weekend of October 3rd. When we talked to Nikko a few weeks ago, Missouri was clearly his best offer. But in July he picked up an offer from home town Minnesota, and it may be tough to get him to leave his home state.
-- The major target to keep an eye on at this point in time may be Ohio prospect Willie Jackson. Jackson has four visits scheduled, starting with Temple on the weekend of September 11th. He comes to Columbia the following weekend, Boston College after that and Penn State in October. He still has one visit left if he wants to use it. Jackson told me he is working on setting up an in-home visit with the Mizzou staff, but doesn’t have it set yet. He plans to sign during the early signing period. At this point in time, we’d probably handicap him as the most likely to commit to the Tigers in the coming weeks.
-- That obviously means we wouldn’t put Tyler Cook in that discussion. Still no word from Cook’s camp and we’ve really given up on ever getting any. It was posted on the board by a subscriber earlier this week that Cook was down to Florida and Iowa. Nobody has confirmed that, but from pretty much every source we’re hearing it doesn’t look like Missouri is going to get him. It will be surprising to us if Cook never even takes an official visit, but that certainly could be a possibility at this point in time.
