FOOTBALL RECRUITING
- As we mentioned earlier this week, Lakeview Centennial (Tex.) offensive lineman Ezra Oyetade recently made the trek to Columbia for an unhosted visit around campus. He also visited Vanderbilt during his SEC, stage one trek. It appears that Arizona State and Virginia are in line to possibly receive visits as well here soon, which falls in line with what he told us earlier this month. With his proactivity, we would expect a decision to happen sometime this summer. Interesting academic notes on Oyetade - he ranks in the top 15% and has a 3.4 grade-point average while taking advanced placement courses. He's also in a dual-credit program and is on pace to receive both his high school diploma and an associate's degree in science.
- SLUH (Mo.) 2022 athlete Isaac Thompson surprisingly released a Top 10 on Tuesday that included Arkansas, Ole Miss, Georgetown, LSU, Southern Cal, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Penn State, and Missouri. Thompson said that including Missouri in his group was easy as they are "recruiting him the hardest." He says he talks mostly with Curtis Luper, Charlie Harbison, and Eliah Drinkwitz on Mizzou's staff. Harbison and Thompson's dad have a great relationship as well. The rising junior also said he's been impressed with the Tigers' 2021 class and the focus on the talent in St. Louis.
- Caught up with Bellvue (Neb.) West 2022 tight end Micah Riley earlier this week who told me he talks to Casey Woods and Erik Link at least once a week. He also did a virtual tour with the staff a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed with the new facilities. The four-star prospect is hoping to get to Missouri for a visit as soon as things open back up. He also holds offers from Purdue, Wisconsin, Oregon, Michigan State, Michigan, Penn State, Arizona State, and others.
- Also caught up with perhaps Mizzou's top 2022 QB target in MJ Morris earlier this week as well. We've mentioned this when Morris initially got the offer, but his father is from St. Louis and he visits family there 2-3 times a year. He said his relationship with Drinkwitz is the very reason that Missouri is high on his list. Drinkwitz also gave Morris his first offer when he was at App State, so that relationship has been solid for a while and that should keep the Tigers in the mix as Morris' recruitment continues to skyrocket.
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
A couple of 2021 names came off the board this week
Cleveland is going to Florida State and Branham to Ohio State. Neither is a player we had really thought Mizzou was a player for recently, but they are now officially off the board to other places.
That leaves 19 uncommitted players who have Mizzou offers that we know about in the 2021 class. The Tigers have six scholarships. Assuming at least one--and possibly more--will be used on junior college players or transfers, here are the players we think Mizzou is most likely in position to have a legitimate shot with
Guys like David Joplin and Kaleb Brown could also join that list.
WEEKLY WILL WE HAVE A SEASON UPDATE
There's an underlying sense of cautious hope or optimism this week in people I talk to that a season is going to happen in some form. However, that needs to come with a couple of warnings:
1) It's cautious
2) Feelings seem to change every couple of days on this
The ACC and Big 12 are expected to make announcements next week on what they'll do. The reporting out there suggests they'll be looking at some sort of a "conference games plus one" model. The SEC has a meeting next Thursday and is also expected to come to some sort of decision in the days after that. The general consensus there is similar to the ACC and Big 12 where the conferences could all work together in some sense. That protects games like Louisville/Kentucky, South Carolina/Clemson, Georgia/Georgia Tech, LSU/Texas, Tennessee/Oklahoma and Arkansas/Notre Dame (which is, for the sake of this discussion, an ACC team).
While there are people that are more hopeful than they were a week or two ago, it's important to understand, this is just a plan. Plans change. It does no good to come out and cancel the season on July 24th so as long as they aren't cancelling the season, the stance is always going to be "We plan to play." Like I've said a few times, "I PLAN to be alive on Tuesday." If I get hit by a bus or something in the next four days, I won't be. But I PLAN to be. This isn't to say a season won't happen, it's simply to say that it's not an assurance that it will either.
The general consensus is that it's not going to start on September 5th. I think the Central Arkansas games is all but out for Mizzou. I think the season opener--if things go well--would be either September 12th against Vanderbilt or September 19th at South Carolina (with the Vandy game moved back to a later date that works for both teams). There are numerous advantages to waiting a couple extra weeks:
1) It delays the date by which you HAVE to make a decision
2) It allows other sports, including the NFL, to be the guinea pig and to give this a trial run. If baseball and basketball and the NFL have to stop before then, it's a little easier for college football to push back to spring. But if those other sports work--or at least continue to play without interruption--it's easier for colleges to say they're playing.
3) It allows some time to see what happens when the students come back to campus. This is really the most important thing. A bubble can't exist for college sports. You can't confine kids to a hotel, tell them not to see other people, etc. It's simply unrealistic. When 20,000 students come back to campus in August, that's what's really going to determine if we have a season. If the kids come back and there aren't big spikes in numbers in college towns and players don't start getting infected at a huge rate, you've got a shot at a season. If they come back and all of a sudden Baton Rouge and Columbia and Knoxville and Fayetteville are setting record numbers in positives tests and more people are going to the hospital and teams test the week before the season and have 32 players with it, you're kind of screwed.
And before I get the blowback of "They need to just stop being p---ies and play and understand there are going to be positive tests" the optics and the public perception ARE a factor here. They just are. You can disagree with that, you can be mad about it, you can complain about it. But that doesn't change the fact that they are. College athletics has to be somewhat aware of what the reaction will be if these towns turn into hot spots for positive tests and they go ahead and put the players on the field.
I think in the end it comes down to the thing we've always thought it would come down to: If campus remains open and classes are being held in-person, they play. If the schools make the call to go online, they don't play. Because the one thing that you just can't justify is telling everyone "It's not safe to have Johnny Johnson go to math class, but it's safe to have our team play football."
TL;DR version: What is said over the next month doesn't really matter all that much as long as it isn't "We aren't playing." If you want football, the key is when the kids come back to campus what the spread looks like. You want football, you better root your ass off for SEC schools to continue to hold class in person. Because if that ends, football season goes away.
- As we mentioned earlier this week, Lakeview Centennial (Tex.) offensive lineman Ezra Oyetade recently made the trek to Columbia for an unhosted visit around campus. He also visited Vanderbilt during his SEC, stage one trek. It appears that Arizona State and Virginia are in line to possibly receive visits as well here soon, which falls in line with what he told us earlier this month. With his proactivity, we would expect a decision to happen sometime this summer. Interesting academic notes on Oyetade - he ranks in the top 15% and has a 3.4 grade-point average while taking advanced placement courses. He's also in a dual-credit program and is on pace to receive both his high school diploma and an associate's degree in science.
- SLUH (Mo.) 2022 athlete Isaac Thompson surprisingly released a Top 10 on Tuesday that included Arkansas, Ole Miss, Georgetown, LSU, Southern Cal, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Penn State, and Missouri. Thompson said that including Missouri in his group was easy as they are "recruiting him the hardest." He says he talks mostly with Curtis Luper, Charlie Harbison, and Eliah Drinkwitz on Mizzou's staff. Harbison and Thompson's dad have a great relationship as well. The rising junior also said he's been impressed with the Tigers' 2021 class and the focus on the talent in St. Louis.
- Caught up with Bellvue (Neb.) West 2022 tight end Micah Riley earlier this week who told me he talks to Casey Woods and Erik Link at least once a week. He also did a virtual tour with the staff a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed with the new facilities. The four-star prospect is hoping to get to Missouri for a visit as soon as things open back up. He also holds offers from Purdue, Wisconsin, Oregon, Michigan State, Michigan, Penn State, Arizona State, and others.
- Also caught up with perhaps Mizzou's top 2022 QB target in MJ Morris earlier this week as well. We've mentioned this when Morris initially got the offer, but his father is from St. Louis and he visits family there 2-3 times a year. He said his relationship with Drinkwitz is the very reason that Missouri is high on his list. Drinkwitz also gave Morris his first offer when he was at App State, so that relationship has been solid for a while and that should keep the Tigers in the mix as Morris' recruitment continues to skyrocket.
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
A couple of 2021 names came off the board this week
Cleveland is going to Florida State and Branham to Ohio State. Neither is a player we had really thought Mizzou was a player for recently, but they are now officially off the board to other places.
That leaves 19 uncommitted players who have Mizzou offers that we know about in the 2021 class. The Tigers have six scholarships. Assuming at least one--and possibly more--will be used on junior college players or transfers, here are the players we think Mizzou is most likely in position to have a legitimate shot with
Guys like David Joplin and Kaleb Brown could also join that list.
WEEKLY WILL WE HAVE A SEASON UPDATE
There's an underlying sense of cautious hope or optimism this week in people I talk to that a season is going to happen in some form. However, that needs to come with a couple of warnings:
1) It's cautious
2) Feelings seem to change every couple of days on this
The ACC and Big 12 are expected to make announcements next week on what they'll do. The reporting out there suggests they'll be looking at some sort of a "conference games plus one" model. The SEC has a meeting next Thursday and is also expected to come to some sort of decision in the days after that. The general consensus there is similar to the ACC and Big 12 where the conferences could all work together in some sense. That protects games like Louisville/Kentucky, South Carolina/Clemson, Georgia/Georgia Tech, LSU/Texas, Tennessee/Oklahoma and Arkansas/Notre Dame (which is, for the sake of this discussion, an ACC team).
While there are people that are more hopeful than they were a week or two ago, it's important to understand, this is just a plan. Plans change. It does no good to come out and cancel the season on July 24th so as long as they aren't cancelling the season, the stance is always going to be "We plan to play." Like I've said a few times, "I PLAN to be alive on Tuesday." If I get hit by a bus or something in the next four days, I won't be. But I PLAN to be. This isn't to say a season won't happen, it's simply to say that it's not an assurance that it will either.
The general consensus is that it's not going to start on September 5th. I think the Central Arkansas games is all but out for Mizzou. I think the season opener--if things go well--would be either September 12th against Vanderbilt or September 19th at South Carolina (with the Vandy game moved back to a later date that works for both teams). There are numerous advantages to waiting a couple extra weeks:
1) It delays the date by which you HAVE to make a decision
2) It allows other sports, including the NFL, to be the guinea pig and to give this a trial run. If baseball and basketball and the NFL have to stop before then, it's a little easier for college football to push back to spring. But if those other sports work--or at least continue to play without interruption--it's easier for colleges to say they're playing.
3) It allows some time to see what happens when the students come back to campus. This is really the most important thing. A bubble can't exist for college sports. You can't confine kids to a hotel, tell them not to see other people, etc. It's simply unrealistic. When 20,000 students come back to campus in August, that's what's really going to determine if we have a season. If the kids come back and there aren't big spikes in numbers in college towns and players don't start getting infected at a huge rate, you've got a shot at a season. If they come back and all of a sudden Baton Rouge and Columbia and Knoxville and Fayetteville are setting record numbers in positives tests and more people are going to the hospital and teams test the week before the season and have 32 players with it, you're kind of screwed.
And before I get the blowback of "They need to just stop being p---ies and play and understand there are going to be positive tests" the optics and the public perception ARE a factor here. They just are. You can disagree with that, you can be mad about it, you can complain about it. But that doesn't change the fact that they are. College athletics has to be somewhat aware of what the reaction will be if these towns turn into hot spots for positive tests and they go ahead and put the players on the field.
I think in the end it comes down to the thing we've always thought it would come down to: If campus remains open and classes are being held in-person, they play. If the schools make the call to go online, they don't play. Because the one thing that you just can't justify is telling everyone "It's not safe to have Johnny Johnson go to math class, but it's safe to have our team play football."
TL;DR version: What is said over the next month doesn't really matter all that much as long as it isn't "We aren't playing." If you want football, the key is when the kids come back to campus what the spread looks like. You want football, you better root your ass off for SEC schools to continue to hold class in person. Because if that ends, football season goes away.
