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FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Some news and notes before we get to the big news
- Lee's Summit (Mo.) 4-star WR target Joshua Manning has set up an official visit to Missouri for the weekend of June 24th. He's also got one set for Nebraska on June 3rd and is in the process of scheduling one with Iowa State as well. Manning has picked up a couple of intriguing offers recently in Notre Dame and Stanford, where his father played. Speaking of family connections, Joshua's older brother, Micah, just committed to Missouri as a preferred walk-on out of Iowa Western C.C. That could obviously play a big advantage with the Tigers.
- Add Lee's Summit North (Mo.) OL target Cayden Green to Missouri's June 24th official visit weekend. The four-star prospect announced that on social media on Thursday. Green will get his official visits started later this month at Nebraska, followed by Oklahoma (June 3rd), Michigan (June 17th), then Mizzou.
The weekend of June 25th will be Missouri's big visit weekend where they hope to have all their top-priority in town. Logan Reichert is another top-priority, in-state target pegged for that weekend as well. For now, the only other official the Raytown (Mo.) product has scheduled is to Oregon on June 17th.
- Another potential official visitor this summer for Missouri could be Clay (Fla.) cornerback Jarvis Lee, who recently picked up an offer from the Tigers back on April 6th. It was his first SEC offer. Lee already did a FaceTime tour with cornerbacks coach Al Pogue and is looking to schedule a summer trip. So far, Lee has set up officials with Iowa State (June 17th) and Memphis (June 10th).
- Newly offered 2023 linebacker Dickson Agu is another target to keep an eye on. Like Lee, Missouri is Agu's first SEC offer. He recently did a virtual tour with Mizzou's staff and is working to set up a visit date this summer. Purdue is another school that is making a big push. The Boilermakers were one of the first offers for Agu and he visited Purdue back in April.
- Missouri offered 2022 juco defensive tackle Taylor Lewis on Thursday. Lewis is still on the market for this year and would be on a roster in the 2022 season. But it doesn't look right now like that roster will be Missouri's. Lewis told us last night he has a visit scheduled to Oregon State. When we asked if he was considering other visits, Nebraska is the only school he mentioned. Things could change, but for now it looks like he is headed elsewhere.
- Another new offer yesterday was 2024 Georgia DB Tyjai Hopper. Mizzou DE Tyrone Hopper, the transfer from North Carolina, is his brother. Ty'Ron, the linebacker transfer from Florida, is his cousin. They all live together. They also have a third brother who currently plays at Boise State. With the COVID eligibility, we await the day where there is an entire defense which consists of nothing but Hoppers.
- Okay, so now for the big news. Earlier in the week, we had told you that we thought Missouri was done with transfer quarterbacks. That's because after Gerry Bohannon committed to South Florida, a very good source told us Missouri was probably done with transfers. The intention all along was "we only wanted to bring in a proven starter." There was a brief window where Grant Gunnell was a possibility, but after a couple of days of conversations, it became clear there was a lot more interest from Gunnell's side than there was from Missouri's. At that point, we connected dots and expected Missouri to be done.
On Thursday, we began to get indication that things were really picking up with Missisippi State transfer Jack Abraham. We first brought up Abraham's name in last week's Chamber. At that time, Bohanon hadn't made a decision and things were in a holding pattern with Abraham. But after the Bohanon decision, the staff took a longer look at Abraham and since the middle of this week, things have moved very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that Abraham will be on campus for a visit tomorrow. After speaking with sources, it would be a surprise at this point if Abraham didn't commit to Missouri some time in the next week or so.
Abraham's other options right now are Ole Miss, where he would have to fight for a starting job and Austin Peay, where he would be very likely to be the starter. The situation at Missouri is somewhere between those two. He's not going to be guaranteed to be the starter, but he's going to have a good shot, likely better than the one he would have at Ole Miss. Abraham grew up in Mississippi--in fact, his dad was a walk-on there--and the family is Ole Miss fans. But Abraham wants to play and he wants a shot at the Power Five level. Missouri is the best combination of those two things.
Abraham is 24 years old and already married. Next year will be his seventh season of college football. He came on Missouri's radar because new wide receivers coach Jacob Peeler recruited him when Peeler was at Cal--in 2016, which is now four jobs ago. Abraham signed with Louisiana Tech and redshirted in 2016 (incidentally, when Blake Baker was the Tech defensive coordinator and likely faced Abraham on the scout team in practice). He went to Northwest Mississippi CC in 2017 to raise his stock for FBS teams and it worked. He signed with Southern Miss, where he played 27 games and threw for 7067 yards, 41 touchdowns and 29 interceptions over three seasons. From there, Abraham transferred to Mississippi State, where he had a good spring and had high hopes to be Mike Leach's starting quarterback. But Abraham ended up redshirting after not being medically cleared due to post-concussion syndrome. We are told he has since been given the go-ahead to play. He entered the portal and here we are today.
Nothing is a guarantee in recruiting. But Missouri has done enough dancing with transfer quarterbacks that it doesn't want to go through another extended process. Abraham has done his homework. The visit this weekend seems very likely to be a prelude to a commitment. The next step would be the camp competition between Abraham, Brady Cook, Tyler Macon and Sam Horn.
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
No specific names to report here. We're not sure where Missouri is going, other than Dennis Gates told us he's absolutely going to use the two remaining scholarships and C.Y. Young said they're looking for a rim protector and a big wing who can shoot.
“We definitely need another big, and one more big wing, shooter. We want to try to add size at every position, see how we can switch one through five. Not sure if we can yet, but that’s the vision. That’s what coach Gates was successful with at Cleveland State, and that’s how we were successful at Florida State. So if we can get another long wing that can really shoot it and we can get another big that can rim run and protect the rim, we definitely will take them.”
A week ago, we thought we were days away from Jamarion Sharp being a Tiger. That obviously didn't happen. Sharp shocked everyone when he returned to Western Kentucky. Why did things fall apart? Because, as we said above, nothing in recruiting is done until it is actually done. I'm going to quote from Dave Matter's chat yesterday (read the whole thing here if you want) because he reported it and we want to give proper attribution:
"As for Sharp, this much I know: Heading into last weekend, Mizzou’s staff fully expected Sharp to transfer to Missouri. The plans were in motion for him to move to Columbia. Then things went quiet between the two sides on Sunday and he shocked everyone Monday when he announced he was staying at WKU. The staff was blindsided."
Even after the social media declaration on Monday, there were some whispers that Sharp wasn't all in on Western Kentucky and that Missouri might not give up. But on Wednesday, Sharp posted on social media encouraging Western Kentucky fans to get involved with the Hilltoppers' NIL efforts and at this point, it looks like he is certainly staying. So, the speculation can finally end and we can get to trying to figure out where else Missouri will look. At this point, we aren't sure because there really aren't any transfers who have been publicly tied to the Tigers. Over the next couple of weeks, we hope to gain some more clarity on this front. When we do, you'll know.
