Join Mizzou beat writer Dave Matter for his live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday
Bring your Tigers football, basketball and recruiting questions, and talk to Dave Matter in a live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday.
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Greetings from Atlanta, where we've got one more coach coming to the stage before we wrap up SEC media days. That would be Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher.If you haven't listened yet, here's the latest podcast from Atlanta. -
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I'm not sure it's fair or accurate to say it was the same factor with all three of the QBs who visited Columbia during the spring. Maybe they weren't certain they'd win the job. Maybe they weren't sold on the offense or the supporting cast. Maybe they just liked the other places better on their visits.
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Keep in mind, the more slices to the pie, the smaller the slice for everyone else. What does Arizona and Utah add to the SEC? How do they make the SEC a better football league? I don't see it. Greg Sankey made it clear that he values geography when talking about expansion candidates. Arizona and Utah don't really fit that factor well.
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The Big 12 isn't imploding. It's getting bigger. It's adding four schools next year and could possibly start poaching Pac-12 schools. I don't see the SEC just adding schools for the sake of adding schools. If you can get a prized commodity - ahem, Notre Dame - you make that move. But, again, I don't see Texas Tech or Baylor really adding value to the SEC.
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If he's got a really skilled tight end he'll incorporate that position into the passing game. But he hasn't had too many during the course of his career. I don't think that's necessarily by design. Tight ends play a lot of snaps in his offense as blockers and have roles in the short passing game. Daniel Parker Jr. played 465 snaps last year; Niko Hea played 365. The bulk of their snaps came on running plays. Only two wideouts played more snaps than those two tight ends.
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Hi Dave - Welcome Back! I hope you enjoyed your vacation. My question is more of a comment. I watched ED's 30 min. question/answer session at SEC Media Day - and I have to say I was somewhat taken back on how he handled the questions. To me, he came off aloof and at times condescending when answering the questions from the press. It almost looked like he had little interest being there and even putting up a wall of not going to in-depth with his answers - almost like the questions were beneath him. The only time I saw him excited and perk up is when he talked about his relationship with Gus Malzahn - to me who cares! At last year's media day, everybody was raving about his personality and fun attitude. What happened after one year? Thank You.
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A couple points to make here. Before he went up on stage for the televised Q&A that you watched on SEC Network, Drinkwitz spent 30 minutes in a private suite with myself and a few other reporters who cover Mizzou. That's where we ask our questions. He was thoughtful and engaging as ever during that session. During the televised session, he's getting questions from writers and radio people who cover other teams or national writers - and tend to ask weird questions that aren't even necessarily about his team. A Georgia writer asked him to break down UGA's tight ends. That was a doozie. One thing I admire about Drinkwitz is he actually listens to questions - and if it's not a good question he'll let you know it. I respect that. We ask a lot of bad questions sometimes.As for his overall demeanor this week, I wrote about that. I thought he was more serious, wasn't throwing jabs and zingers. He had a really interesting conversation with Paul Finebaum at the end of the day Monday.Here's what I wrote if you missed it:
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For you believe this is a possible but on the burner year for drinkwich, three years in, another 500 or less season may raise too many questions about the ability of the staff to coach up the players in the football program and translate that to wins on the field. We can see the coach can recruit, now can he actually win games ?
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Great to have you back Dave! Since NIL money is not coming directly out of the university or TSF pockets, you don't hear much from Mun Choi or AD-DRF criticizing the NIL. But i wonder if AD-DRF and similar AD's at other schools are starting to sweat about the loss of potential TSF donors? All that money comes from somewhere and there would seem to be a finite limit at some point of either donating to the TSF and the next big building project or providing the salary for the net great 5-star recruit.
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That's a looming concern that I wrote about earlier this summer and I asked Reed-Francois about that challenge. Here's what she said:“Philanthropic support is critically important. We still have a scholarship bill to pay. We have a responsibility to provide all the resources for our student-athletes. And while NIL is a continuing evolution and something that we want to be continuing to grow and support. ... If someone is going to support Mizzou athletics it’s our job is to align their passion, wherever that may be. We don’t control the collective. We can’t by law. We can’t directly or indirectly control that. So what we do is we go and we build relationships. We go and connect to people in the community. That’s why we’re doing 25 events over the next two and a half months. We’re going to be within 30 miles of every single season ticket holder because we need to go to our community so that we can bring people back. We were intentional calling it the ‘Come Home Tour’ because we can’t consistently win championships if we all don’t come together.”She understands that MU's current donor base has a finite amount of money to donate to either the department or NIL collectives. That's why she wants to grow the donor base so there's more money to go around. MU had around 7,000 donors when she took the job last summer. As of this spring, that number was closer to 8,100. Her next goal is 10,500, then 20,000.
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I'm not sure if you were able to attend the Bowers/Carroll charity game. I, myself, only saw the photos from it, and it looked like a great event that crossed multiple generations of athletes and fans. My question....is there anyone who participated in that whose attendance was a surprise to you?
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Yes, I attended the game. Took my family and wrote a story about the event. No surprises to me. I believe everyone they announced leading up to the game showed up except for Anthony Peeler and Thomas Gardner.
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I'd be surprised if he starts to begin the year. Drinkwitz has emphasized experience, experience, experience at the QB position heading into the season because of those three early road games. Horn is the only QB among the four without college playing experience. So, I'd say he's a long shot. But as the season unfolds, if he's practicing well and they're not happy with the starter, then maybe he gets some looks.
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Not really. Lots of complaints, no solutions. The Supreme Court decision last year made it clear that NIL isn't going away, short of some federal legislation. That's what Greg Sankey wants - but not necessarily the coaches. Most coaches say they want uniform rules, but I haven't heard any concrete ideas.
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This will be my first year not watching college football. My interest plummeted over the last year and for the first time, I didn’t monitor any coverage from SEC media days. I also dropped my PowerMizzou sub. Good luck to the Tigers, sincerely, but I’ll be engaging in new hobbies this fall.
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Thanks for the chat.
I love watching SEC media days. It’s good to pass the time during the slow season. Anyways, Mizzou seems like the least talked about team this year as compared to previous years. I guess when you are 6-7 there isn’t much to talk about. It almost seems like we are an afterthought this year. Your thoughts. How do you feel like Mizzou is perceived? -
A couple factors.1. Mizzou was on Day 1. By Wednesday the teams here earlier in the week are distant memories.2. What's there to talk about? Mizzou doesn't exactly have established star players. They'll be picked fifth or sixth in the East. People generally want to talk about teams that are expected to compete for championships.3. Mizzou doesn't have a true rival that's going to naturally generate discussion with the coaches or players. Sam Pittman did talk about building the Mizzou rivalry on Wednesday. Otherwise, not much else to discuss.
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