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Heck of a week for you guys. First, you got a mini-Chamber on Tuesday night. Now there's a real Chamber. At the risk of spoiling you all, there's A LOT to get to. So let's get to it.
WEEKEND VISITORS
Before we dive into everything that has happened, let's get into what's going to happen. We know of three official visitors that are expected to be in town this week.
Himon has been high on the Tigers. A few weeks ago, there was even talk that he would commit before the summer. But he's made it to visit season without a commitment so far. He is scheduled to visit Vanderbilt. It will be interesting to see how things play out this weekend. Missouri hosted Emeka Megwa at Night at the Zou on Wednesday and CJ Stokes is scheduled to be in town next weekend. Not saying that Himon has to commit on this visit to lock up a spot, but the running back quota could be filled relatively soon. Part of that is because...
We are expecting Barlow, who spent two years at TCU, to be in town on a visit this weekend.
Barlow played in 12 games and started four for a TCU team that led the country in rushing last year. He had 428 yards and four touchdowns on 73 carries in 2020. That was the only year he played after redshirting in 2019. Because last year didn't count toward eligibility, Barlow would still technically have four years of eligibility remaining.
He had a Mizzou offer out of high school, along with a bunch of others. He visited Arkansas, Minnesota and Oklahoma State out of high school and is sure to draw plenty of interest this time around. Mike Farrell weighed in on Barlow last week. There will be plenty of competition, but getting an early visit is a good sign for the Tigers, who we've been saying all spring could very well add a transfer back if the right one emerged.
Evans has been the most talked-about transfer with the Tigers. He was a safety out of high school, but played corner at Tulsa and did it well enough to get on NFL radars. Evans visited Texas on Tuesday and spent the last two days at Notre Dame.
He also has Texas Tech and Jackson State in his top five. We expect a decision to come relatively soon, whenever he wraps up his visit tour. Nobody has talked directly to Evans that we have seen, so we are not sure if he plans to visit JSU or Texas Tech at this point. Missouri's big pull here is the presence of Aaron Fletcher, who coached Evans at Tulsa.
It is possible there is another visitor or two in town this weekend. We aren't sure. But the three above are the ones we feel confident are expected to be on campus.
NIGHT AT THE ZOU REACTION
Mizzou had its big invite only event on Wednesday and hosted 20 prospects. We're not going to list them all again because we've done that a lot this week. The initial list is posted here. The only changes were that Emeka Megwa was in town and Jadon Scarlett did not make the trip.
In general, the reviews of the event were extremely positive, as you would expect. One source told us "I don't know how it could have gone any better." Optimism is high coming out of the night. A lot of the focus was on East St. Louis WR Luther Burden, who released the rest of his summer plans last night
From what we hear, Burden's family loves the Mizzou staff and would very much like him to play relatively close to home. He is still committed to Oklahoma and will visit Norman later this month. Oklahoma still feels confident (spoiler here: Oklahoma, for good reason, almost always feels confident). If we're handicapping it, from what we've heard, we actually think Alabama is probably the biggest threat in Burden's recruitment for the Tigers. Florida and Georgia will also get official visits, but we think the top three will end up being Oklahoma, Missouri and Alabama in some order. Expect this one to go all the way to signing day (even if he makes an announcement before then).
The other major uncommitted visitor was Toriano Pride (don't get us wrong, there were others, but Burden and Pride are the ones that it seems Missouri is probably most heavily in contention for at the current moment). Pride didn't commit, but reviews we heard were very positive about his day in Columbia. He will visit Ohio State officially this weekend, take an unofficial to Clemson next week, and check out Auburn on an official toward the end of the month. Clemson and Missouri are considered the main contenders right now. We don't have a timetable for a decision. It could happen as soon as this month and it could last into the fall for more official visits.
Here are other reactions we got from Wednesday's visitors:
Micah Riley-Ducker - "It was a good time I’m glad we finally get to meet the coaches and see some facilities. I had fun and spent time with all of Mizzou's top targets, which was big. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead for my other visits."
Ja'Marion Wayne - "The coaches were cool. They weren't so serious. They are very understandable. Another thing was when we were talking about what they have to offer, their study program stood out to me. All the staff really stood out."
Tristan Wilson - "The biggest thing that stood out to me was the coaches and just being able to be around them and talk to them face-to-face. It truly feels like family and home."
Armand Membou - "I loved it there man they showed me and my family so much love. What stood out to me was definitely the whole coaching staff making me really feel like family."
Mekhi Miller - " It was very good. Felt good to receive plenty of love and see the other recruits/commits and staff in person. It was very fun."
Max Whisner - "I will say that a lot of recruited players by Mizzou had a phenomenal time coach Drink and staff really outdid themselves yesterday setting all that up."
Isaac Thompson - "It was a great time couldn’t wait to get up to Mizzou ASAP in June. It was even better as i remember it being last January had a great time with the commits and future commits."
DJ Wesolak - We talked to Wesolak yesterday and you can read the full article here. Wesolak told us that, as we've reported for a while, Mizzou was never out of the picture despite being excluded from his top 15 schools list about six weeks ago. We aren't suddenly ready to call Mizzou his leader or anything like that, but we think his visit for Night at the Zou helped the Tigers' case. He got to meet Steve Wilks and Jethro Franklin (he said the lack of relationship there had been a sticking point) and got the hometown kid NIL sales pitch from Eli Drinkwitz. He said Missouri's standing is ultimately going to come down to whether he can be convinced he can win big there, and a good start to the 2021 season would be a good way to do that. In the end, we think Missouri's best chance here is that Wesolak remains uncommitted into the fall, some of his other offers dry up and the Tigers start this season well.
Cayden Green - "It was really cool. I love the atmosphere and the coaches were very genuine. I could tell that the stuff they were talking about was authentic and they genuinely care about their guys." Green told us he will visit Notre Dame on the 14th, Georgia and Georgia State (possibly also Georgia Tech who just offered yesterday) on June 17/18 and Oklahoma on the 19th. You can go ahead and pencil him in as Target No. 1 for Mizzou's 2023 class.
You can read other tweets and reaction to Night at the Zou in this thread.
