FOOTBALL RECRUITING
- The OLB target out of Dublin (Ga.) told Rivals.com analyst Chad Simmons this week that Missouri is one of the schools among his top five. Height is looking to make a commitment during the summer and has keyed in on Mizzou, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, and Arizona State based on relationships. The three-star prospect talks to Brick Haley on a regular basis and told us he is planning to take an unofficial visit sometime this fall.
- Missouri was listed among the top eight schools for three-star cornerback Christian Gonzalez out of The Colony (Tex.). Other schools among his top schools include: Purdue, Notre Dame, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Baylor, Ole Miss, and Colorado. Gonzalez just picked up an offer from Missouri on February 8th.
- The running back target out of Cedar Ridge (Tex.) told us this week he is planning to visit Missouri soon, most likely for a spring practice. While Vaughn is small in stature at 5-foot-7, 170-pounds, he is a highly-productive back that rushed for 1,901 yards, had 159 receiving yards, and tallied 21 total touchdowns during his junior season in 6A Texas football.
- Missouri extended an offer to the four-star safety on Thursday night, but the coaching staff has already seemed to develop a pretty solid relationship with Washington. He told Rivals.com analyst Sam Spiegelman at last weekend's Houston Rivals Camp that he is planning to visit Missouri during his upcoming spring break.
- As we posted on the board earlier this week, Rivals.com Texas/Louisiana analyst Sam Spieglman caught up with the five-star running back target last weekend in Houston. Evans released a Top 11 back on January 6th which included Missouri. In his recent article the teams mentioned were Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia, and Tennessee. Evans did mention interest in the out-of-state schools that have offered, but we're still filing this under the "extremely unlikely for Missouri" category.
- While Missouri was one of the first power five programs to enter the mix for Austin, but it now appears the Tigers are in the rear-view mirror for the three-star defensive end prospect. In a recent interview with GoldandBlack.com, Austin noted that Purdue is his number one school right now and that Boston College, Washington State, Michigan State, and Pitt are other programs he's hearing from regularly.
FOOTBALL NEWS/INFO
*The two names that seemed to come up the most often as far as players who had jumped forward and put themselves in good position heading into spring practice were Brendan Scales and Trajan Jeffcoat. Those names were mentioned by Barry Odom a few times.
With Jeffcoat, it's not really a surprise. The coaches have loved him since well before he signed. They honestly couldn't figure out why he didn't have more major offers. Multiple people told me if the early signing period hadn't been instituted, they didn't think Missouri would have held on to him. This is good news because he has to be good. You simply can't expect Tre Williams to be on the roster (and even if he is, how far down in the doghouse is he, how much has he kept himself in shape during his suspension, etc). Jeffcoat's got to be able to help (and I think start) at defensive end.
Scales, honestly, is a big surprise. He's a guy who a lot of people had written off last season. But Odom is incredibly high on the work he's put in and suddenly he's got a real chance to contribute. He's not the athlete Albert O and Messiah Swinson are, he's probably not the blocker that Daniel Parker is, but if he can be solid at both, Missouri will find a role for him. Truthfully, we thought Scales was a very strong transfer candidate toward the end of last year. This is another example of why we don't start speculating about who's going to leave because you never know when the light bulb is going to come on for kids.
*One other name we've heard has been Jonathan Nance. Not sure if he'll be a starter, but he'll rise up the depth chart pretty quickly.
*We posted the depth chart earlier this week. There weren't really any big surprises. Kudos to Barry Odom for not making us go through the charade of listing Kelly Bryant as the fourth-stringer. He's the starter and we all know it. It was interesting that Micah Wilson is listed above Khmari Thompson. Thompson is a guy that saw the field early, but then redshirt. Could also have something to do with Thompson running track so with his responsibilities being divided, maybe he's behind the guys that are going to be there every day. Other than that, things were pretty much as we would have expected.
*There is no expectation that any of the contributing seniors are looking to leave. If there are transfers, it's more likely that it's guys who aren't playing transferring to a smaller school or conference than it is that a contributing senior would jump to another Power Five team. Not impossible, obviously, but we really don't foresee any movement there.
*We post this with the caveat that when you're talking about the NCAA, making predictions is foolish, because who knows what it will do or when it will do it? That said, we've had a couple people tell us they believe a final ruling on the appeal should come right around the start of the football season. We're looking at late summer or early fall. Nobody we've talked with expects this to take long enough that Missouri could play in a bowl game because the appeal hasn't been resolved. One way or another, we should know by the midway point of the season if not sooner. What the outcome will be, we're not even going to pretend to guess, but six months from today would be September 1st and that's probably a good ballpark for when there should be some resolution.
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Nothing to report here, but just want to kind of mention it so that we don't get accused of completely ignoring it. We've tried to touch base with Harlond Beverly and Myron Gardner in the last week or two and have had no luck. So far as we know, they're still on the Missouri radar for 2019, along with juco prospect Sean McNeil. With seasons winding down, there should be some movement on visits and such in the month of March. We will do our best to track news down over the next few weeks on this front. It should be an active late signing period for Missouri and we will do our best to keep you updated. The lack of news is not for lack of trying. We'll continue to try, but we can't just make things up.
- The OLB target out of Dublin (Ga.) told Rivals.com analyst Chad Simmons this week that Missouri is one of the schools among his top five. Height is looking to make a commitment during the summer and has keyed in on Mizzou, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, and Arizona State based on relationships. The three-star prospect talks to Brick Haley on a regular basis and told us he is planning to take an unofficial visit sometime this fall.
- Missouri was listed among the top eight schools for three-star cornerback Christian Gonzalez out of The Colony (Tex.). Other schools among his top schools include: Purdue, Notre Dame, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Baylor, Ole Miss, and Colorado. Gonzalez just picked up an offer from Missouri on February 8th.
- The running back target out of Cedar Ridge (Tex.) told us this week he is planning to visit Missouri soon, most likely for a spring practice. While Vaughn is small in stature at 5-foot-7, 170-pounds, he is a highly-productive back that rushed for 1,901 yards, had 159 receiving yards, and tallied 21 total touchdowns during his junior season in 6A Texas football.
- Missouri extended an offer to the four-star safety on Thursday night, but the coaching staff has already seemed to develop a pretty solid relationship with Washington. He told Rivals.com analyst Sam Spiegelman at last weekend's Houston Rivals Camp that he is planning to visit Missouri during his upcoming spring break.
- As we posted on the board earlier this week, Rivals.com Texas/Louisiana analyst Sam Spieglman caught up with the five-star running back target last weekend in Houston. Evans released a Top 11 back on January 6th which included Missouri. In his recent article the teams mentioned were Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia, and Tennessee. Evans did mention interest in the out-of-state schools that have offered, but we're still filing this under the "extremely unlikely for Missouri" category.
- While Missouri was one of the first power five programs to enter the mix for Austin, but it now appears the Tigers are in the rear-view mirror for the three-star defensive end prospect. In a recent interview with GoldandBlack.com, Austin noted that Purdue is his number one school right now and that Boston College, Washington State, Michigan State, and Pitt are other programs he's hearing from regularly.
FOOTBALL NEWS/INFO
*The two names that seemed to come up the most often as far as players who had jumped forward and put themselves in good position heading into spring practice were Brendan Scales and Trajan Jeffcoat. Those names were mentioned by Barry Odom a few times.
With Jeffcoat, it's not really a surprise. The coaches have loved him since well before he signed. They honestly couldn't figure out why he didn't have more major offers. Multiple people told me if the early signing period hadn't been instituted, they didn't think Missouri would have held on to him. This is good news because he has to be good. You simply can't expect Tre Williams to be on the roster (and even if he is, how far down in the doghouse is he, how much has he kept himself in shape during his suspension, etc). Jeffcoat's got to be able to help (and I think start) at defensive end.
Scales, honestly, is a big surprise. He's a guy who a lot of people had written off last season. But Odom is incredibly high on the work he's put in and suddenly he's got a real chance to contribute. He's not the athlete Albert O and Messiah Swinson are, he's probably not the blocker that Daniel Parker is, but if he can be solid at both, Missouri will find a role for him. Truthfully, we thought Scales was a very strong transfer candidate toward the end of last year. This is another example of why we don't start speculating about who's going to leave because you never know when the light bulb is going to come on for kids.
*One other name we've heard has been Jonathan Nance. Not sure if he'll be a starter, but he'll rise up the depth chart pretty quickly.
*We posted the depth chart earlier this week. There weren't really any big surprises. Kudos to Barry Odom for not making us go through the charade of listing Kelly Bryant as the fourth-stringer. He's the starter and we all know it. It was interesting that Micah Wilson is listed above Khmari Thompson. Thompson is a guy that saw the field early, but then redshirt. Could also have something to do with Thompson running track so with his responsibilities being divided, maybe he's behind the guys that are going to be there every day. Other than that, things were pretty much as we would have expected.
*There is no expectation that any of the contributing seniors are looking to leave. If there are transfers, it's more likely that it's guys who aren't playing transferring to a smaller school or conference than it is that a contributing senior would jump to another Power Five team. Not impossible, obviously, but we really don't foresee any movement there.
*We post this with the caveat that when you're talking about the NCAA, making predictions is foolish, because who knows what it will do or when it will do it? That said, we've had a couple people tell us they believe a final ruling on the appeal should come right around the start of the football season. We're looking at late summer or early fall. Nobody we've talked with expects this to take long enough that Missouri could play in a bowl game because the appeal hasn't been resolved. One way or another, we should know by the midway point of the season if not sooner. What the outcome will be, we're not even going to pretend to guess, but six months from today would be September 1st and that's probably a good ballpark for when there should be some resolution.
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Nothing to report here, but just want to kind of mention it so that we don't get accused of completely ignoring it. We've tried to touch base with Harlond Beverly and Myron Gardner in the last week or two and have had no luck. So far as we know, they're still on the Missouri radar for 2019, along with juco prospect Sean McNeil. With seasons winding down, there should be some movement on visits and such in the month of March. We will do our best to track news down over the next few weeks on this front. It should be an active late signing period for Missouri and we will do our best to keep you updated. The lack of news is not for lack of trying. We'll continue to try, but we can't just make things up.
