We'll dive on in as we try to gauge the temperature of a team that's been in the national spotlight for the last week. As always, please remember that this is premium information and discussion should be kept to this board.
Despite it being nearly a week since Anthony Sherrills’ tweet, the full impact the entire situation at the University of Missouri has had (will have) on recruiting is not nearly realized. Recruits and their families are still processing a very nuanced situation. Several commits have said they plan to stand by their commitment to Mizzou however.
Jerod Alton, Ca’Ron Baham, Trey Baldwin, Christian Holmes, Royce Newman, Mackenzie Nworah, Albert Okwuegbunam, Natereace Strong, Greg Taylor and Tre Williams have all told PowerMizzou they have no plans to decommit. We have no reason to doubt any of them, but it would be naive to think they are not still following the situation closely and changes could happen.
Darius Anderson, Tobias Little, Tyreic Martin and Tucker McCann have not commented on the situation to us. DeMarkus Acy tweeted out early on that he would evaluate the situation and see how everything plays out before making a decision. Trystan Castillo is still committed to Mizzou, but is now leaning towards not enrolling early to give himself more time to evaluate everything that has happened. He could visit other schools, but hasn’t decided for certain yet. He’s heard from several and added an offer from Minnesota in the last week. Right now Castillo is trying to focus all of his attention on winning another state championship.
We will continue to stay in touch with the current commits as much as possible going forward in order to keep you all as up to date as possible with each. There is still a lot of uncertainty at this time.
— We also tried reaching out to 2015 commit Tyler Howell, but have not heard back. Randy Withers has kept in contact with the coaches at Butler about Howell, but with them focusing on the post season and Howell not being on the team they aren’t able to give real detailed information. Howell is still working toward finishing the one class he needs, but the coaches do not know what he thinks of what has happened at Mizzou the last week.
— Despite wearing white tomorrow, Missouri is the home team at Arrowhead. That means the Tigers can host recruits. It doesn’t sound like there will be a bunch in attendance, but we have confirmed that 2017 commit DaRon Davis will be there. Chester Graves could also be in attendance. Some other regional prospects will likely be in attendance, but there are not a lot of high priority targets in the area at this point.
— Mizzou still has at least three spots to fill in the 2016 class if everyone current commit stays that way. They need to add another defensive lineman, quarterback and wide receiver. They are looking all over the country and checking in with every one who has recently decommitted to see if there is any interest in Mizzou. We have tried to reach out to several possible targets, but it does not seem like anyone wants to talk Mizzou at this point. Tiger coaches have to hope that all the controversy moves on quickly so they can get back to business as usual. At the three positions left it sounds like Mizzou favors (and still has a good shot with) Amani Bledsoe, Riley Ferguson and Derrick Willies.
This part of the Chamber is going to address the team and the locker room and just kind of where things stand for Mizzou.
Before we get into where things stand now, it’s important to understand that this might not have been the most together team even before all of this happened. We’d heard a lot of talk (and posted about it here) about division on the team following the whole Maty Mauk situation. There were probably a few splinters in the locker room even before this week.
And now? Let’s say those splinters may have turned into fractures. Gary Pinkel said that obviously not everybody was on the same page when the team presented its united front. This shouldn’t be a surprise. You probably can’t get all 127 of them to agree on what kind of ice cream should be served in the dining hall, much less on something as divisive as what’s been happening at Missouri.
The question is not if the locker room is divided, the question is how divided? We know there were 31 players in the initial picture. So we know at least 25% of the roster was supportive. What about the other 75%? Are half of them on board? None of them? We don’t know. All we do know is that there’s a divide on a team that was already going through a tough season. This isn’t just speculation. We’ve gotten some feedback from people that there have been some pretty tough days at the facility since this whole thing started six days ago (Side Note: How in the world has this all been going on only six days?)
We’ve gone back and forth on sharing names of specific individuals when it comes to this. And ultimately, we’ve decided nothing is really served by naming individuals who we’ve been told are on one side or the other, partly because those specific people aren’t saying it. So here’s what is known:
— J’Mon Moore was the first player to meet with Jonathan Butler. He told us that.
We had a pretty good conversation and I made some promises," Moore said. - See more at: https://missouri.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1823721
— Anthony Sherrills was the next player Moore turned to.
“Me and Anthony thought of some things, got some things together and we brought it (before other teammates)," Moore said.
Sherrills was the player that took things public, tweeting out the now infamous picture and statement of intent of Mizzou players to boycott football activities.
— Charles Harris and Ian Simon were the next players Sherrills and Moore approached.
Simon made the statement on behalf of the football team to reporters at the campus rally Monday afternoon. See it here if you missed it: https://missouri.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1823702
Harris, though, might have made the most potentially influential statement going forward:
"Let this be a testament to all of the athletes across the country, that you do have a power, you do have power," Harris said. "It started with a few individuals on our team and look what it became, look where it's at right now. It's nationally known, that it started with just a few."
Does this lead to more actions by either Missouri players or athletes at other schools? The obvious issue out there is pay for play. What if enough teams were to band together and say “We’re not playing this weekend or any other weekend until the NCAA provides additional financial support for student-athletes.”? That’s when things could get very interesting.
But short of that, is this going to become a trend? It doesn’t seem likely, but at this point, we can’t really rule anything out. Did Gary Pinkel open a Pandora’s box when he supported his players on this? Could there be more things that the players bring to him and say, “This is important to us. We need your support.”? Who knows? But it can’t be ruled out.
— As far as players who opposed the idea of a boycott, we’ve definitely heard a few names. There are some of them. But again, we don’t see any purpose served by naming those players, largely because we can’t really verify it other than rumor. Fair to say the Tigers aren’t completely united on this issue, but naming specific players isn’t something we’re comfortable doing and probably doesn’t serve any purpose.
Despite it being nearly a week since Anthony Sherrills’ tweet, the full impact the entire situation at the University of Missouri has had (will have) on recruiting is not nearly realized. Recruits and their families are still processing a very nuanced situation. Several commits have said they plan to stand by their commitment to Mizzou however.
Jerod Alton, Ca’Ron Baham, Trey Baldwin, Christian Holmes, Royce Newman, Mackenzie Nworah, Albert Okwuegbunam, Natereace Strong, Greg Taylor and Tre Williams have all told PowerMizzou they have no plans to decommit. We have no reason to doubt any of them, but it would be naive to think they are not still following the situation closely and changes could happen.
Darius Anderson, Tobias Little, Tyreic Martin and Tucker McCann have not commented on the situation to us. DeMarkus Acy tweeted out early on that he would evaluate the situation and see how everything plays out before making a decision. Trystan Castillo is still committed to Mizzou, but is now leaning towards not enrolling early to give himself more time to evaluate everything that has happened. He could visit other schools, but hasn’t decided for certain yet. He’s heard from several and added an offer from Minnesota in the last week. Right now Castillo is trying to focus all of his attention on winning another state championship.
We will continue to stay in touch with the current commits as much as possible going forward in order to keep you all as up to date as possible with each. There is still a lot of uncertainty at this time.
— We also tried reaching out to 2015 commit Tyler Howell, but have not heard back. Randy Withers has kept in contact with the coaches at Butler about Howell, but with them focusing on the post season and Howell not being on the team they aren’t able to give real detailed information. Howell is still working toward finishing the one class he needs, but the coaches do not know what he thinks of what has happened at Mizzou the last week.
— Despite wearing white tomorrow, Missouri is the home team at Arrowhead. That means the Tigers can host recruits. It doesn’t sound like there will be a bunch in attendance, but we have confirmed that 2017 commit DaRon Davis will be there. Chester Graves could also be in attendance. Some other regional prospects will likely be in attendance, but there are not a lot of high priority targets in the area at this point.
— Mizzou still has at least three spots to fill in the 2016 class if everyone current commit stays that way. They need to add another defensive lineman, quarterback and wide receiver. They are looking all over the country and checking in with every one who has recently decommitted to see if there is any interest in Mizzou. We have tried to reach out to several possible targets, but it does not seem like anyone wants to talk Mizzou at this point. Tiger coaches have to hope that all the controversy moves on quickly so they can get back to business as usual. At the three positions left it sounds like Mizzou favors (and still has a good shot with) Amani Bledsoe, Riley Ferguson and Derrick Willies.
This part of the Chamber is going to address the team and the locker room and just kind of where things stand for Mizzou.
Before we get into where things stand now, it’s important to understand that this might not have been the most together team even before all of this happened. We’d heard a lot of talk (and posted about it here) about division on the team following the whole Maty Mauk situation. There were probably a few splinters in the locker room even before this week.
And now? Let’s say those splinters may have turned into fractures. Gary Pinkel said that obviously not everybody was on the same page when the team presented its united front. This shouldn’t be a surprise. You probably can’t get all 127 of them to agree on what kind of ice cream should be served in the dining hall, much less on something as divisive as what’s been happening at Missouri.
The question is not if the locker room is divided, the question is how divided? We know there were 31 players in the initial picture. So we know at least 25% of the roster was supportive. What about the other 75%? Are half of them on board? None of them? We don’t know. All we do know is that there’s a divide on a team that was already going through a tough season. This isn’t just speculation. We’ve gotten some feedback from people that there have been some pretty tough days at the facility since this whole thing started six days ago (Side Note: How in the world has this all been going on only six days?)
We’ve gone back and forth on sharing names of specific individuals when it comes to this. And ultimately, we’ve decided nothing is really served by naming individuals who we’ve been told are on one side or the other, partly because those specific people aren’t saying it. So here’s what is known:
— J’Mon Moore was the first player to meet with Jonathan Butler. He told us that.
We had a pretty good conversation and I made some promises," Moore said. - See more at: https://missouri.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1823721
— Anthony Sherrills was the next player Moore turned to.
“Me and Anthony thought of some things, got some things together and we brought it (before other teammates)," Moore said.
Sherrills was the player that took things public, tweeting out the now infamous picture and statement of intent of Mizzou players to boycott football activities.
— Charles Harris and Ian Simon were the next players Sherrills and Moore approached.
Simon made the statement on behalf of the football team to reporters at the campus rally Monday afternoon. See it here if you missed it: https://missouri.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1823702
Harris, though, might have made the most potentially influential statement going forward:
"Let this be a testament to all of the athletes across the country, that you do have a power, you do have power," Harris said. "It started with a few individuals on our team and look what it became, look where it's at right now. It's nationally known, that it started with just a few."
Does this lead to more actions by either Missouri players or athletes at other schools? The obvious issue out there is pay for play. What if enough teams were to band together and say “We’re not playing this weekend or any other weekend until the NCAA provides additional financial support for student-athletes.”? That’s when things could get very interesting.
But short of that, is this going to become a trend? It doesn’t seem likely, but at this point, we can’t really rule anything out. Did Gary Pinkel open a Pandora’s box when he supported his players on this? Could there be more things that the players bring to him and say, “This is important to us. We need your support.”? Who knows? But it can’t be ruled out.
— As far as players who opposed the idea of a boycott, we’ve definitely heard a few names. There are some of them. But again, we don’t see any purpose served by naming those players, largely because we can’t really verify it other than rumor. Fair to say the Tigers aren’t completely united on this issue, but naming specific players isn’t something we’re comfortable doing and probably doesn’t serve any purpose.
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