最新杏吧原创

Transcript

Eli 贬辞蹿蹿:听Hi, all, and thanks for coming by this week's Mizzou chat. It's a big week in Columbia and across Mizzou country. From the conversations I've had with some folks in Alabama, it's a big one there, too. We'll take the next couple of hours to cover whatever we can about this matchup, the state of the Tigers and anything else that's on your minds.

Tom O:聽I am sitting here with my family in Mexico on a family vacation and seated next to me is my OK brother in law who always referred to my team as 鈥� how is Mizzou loser doing鈥� I need another win over Alabama. Your pick?

贬辞蹿蹿:听Normally I'd be jealous, but it feels like fall this morning in CoMo and I'm a big fan of that. Still, your Thursday is probably much more relaxing than mine.聽

Mizzou can absolutely win this one. Anyone who says otherwise has not watched this Alabama team nor this MU team. I told a radio station in Birmingham last hour than I have the Tigers winning 34-31. The strengths of both offenses align with the weaknesses of the defenses in a way that should produce points. I don't think this Missouri team is remotely intimidated by what they're going to see out of 'Bama.

蚕耻别蝉迟颈辞苍蝉:听So, Missouri has a long-scheduled BB season tipoff fan event, and it has to be canceled at the last minute because Paul Finebaum wants to do his show at the arena entrance? Can that possibly be true? IF so, it seems blatantly disrespectful to Gates, Harper, the BB players and the fans. In your dealings with Finebaum, does he seem so self-absorbed that he wouldn鈥檛 see the problem? And why did the athletic department bend a knee to his selfish desires?聽 It's not like there aren't many other places he could set up.

贬辞蹿蹿:听I wouldn't call the "Tiger Tip-off" event long-scheduled. But yes, it was canceled due to a "scheduling conflict" that appears to be the SEC Network shows setting up in front of the arena.聽

I don't get the sense that the SEC Network and certainly not Finebaum himself gave that order. Perhaps with an early morning Saturday the athletics department was fine with this. I mean this as no disrespect to the folks who were planning it, but I don't think the Friday night basketball event was going to be anything incredibly revelatory 鈥� probably something like the event they'd done on the Quad a couple of times, but with less effort because it was just in the arena.聽

I will say, it's not like the sets for the SEC shows can just go anywhere. They're pretty big and unwieldy. In this case, they needed to be close to the stadium because of the 11 a.m. kickoff. I've only been on with Finebaum once and never met him in person but found him and his staff professional and courteous.

Boston Mizzou:聽Do you think our secondary limits the big plays this weeekend against bama. That worries me.

贬辞蹿蹿:听罢丑补迟'蝉听迟丑别听worry, no? I wrote about this for the paper/website this morning. Ty Simpson has made throws against sound zone coverage. Give him a busted look? He'll absolutely take advantage. There aren't many corners who can hold up against Germie Bernard and Ryan Williams in man. It's a really difficult matchup.

There are just going to be some plays that Simpson and those wideouts make. The Tide are going to put points on the board. It's more about whether Mizzou can pull off one or two more stops than Alabama does. Or force turnovers, which could drastically change the game. And, of course, avoid some of the busts.

Boston Mizzou:聽what鈥檚 the scoop on Moore to ark ?

贬辞蹿蹿:听There were a couple of small-level reports earlier this week that Mizzou offensive coordinator Kirby Moore interviewed over the weekend for the Arkansas head coach opening. I'm not reading much into it. Not saying it is or isn't true, but I've heard nothing to confirm it and not seen anything confirming that notion from established, trusted reporters in Fayetteville. Hence why it's not something I've written about this week.

I'll be shocked if Moore does not have head coaching opportunities offered to him after this season. I don't know what his ambitions are or what he would/wouldn't take. I'm not sure if an SEC program (whether it's Arkansas or any other that might open) gives him that look. That would be a pretty drastic move for the Hogs. For now, I'd say wait and see.

顿颁骋:听Eli: Normally, my Mizzou pride would want this game to be a prime time kickoff as Mizzou so rarely has those on the biggest channels, but I'm happy that's it's at noon instead. I've been anxiety ridden since the moment that UMass nonsense ended. If Mizzou wins, they are squarely in the playoff hunt and can withstand at least one "good" loss (notice how suddenly their schedule doesn't seem so easy now that Vandy, OK, and A&M have all established their bona fides). If they lose, then there's no margin for error. They won't get the two-loss benefit of the doubt that Notre Dame and others will get based on name recognition. I just need Saturday to get here!

贬辞蹿蹿:听I don't think you're alone in any of those sentiments. It's worth noting that Mizzou's still on ABC in this slot, and the only game of remotely similar billing is Ohio State-Illinois, which I'm not seeing anyone argue as a particularly compelling matchup. There should be a lot of eyes on this one.

I do think there'll be at least one, probably more, two-loss SEC teams in the playoff. The analytics (via Kelly Ford, who's a good number-cruncher) actually say 9-3 would be enough for Mizzou to be in "the discussion." This is a game that obviously opens up a lot for the Tigers if they win. But the Tide have far more to lose, given the loss they already have.

闯辞丑苍尝:听Good Morning-As a lifelong BB MIZZOU Super Fan, I also think the arrogance of the SEC Network coming in and taking over the facade of the area in front of the arena and making us lose the opportunity to see our team play is BX. Let 'em set-up at Reactor Field. Additionally, that SEC Network and Show, over the years, has shown very little respect for MU. We are thought of as a second-rate institution. No luv lose here!

贬辞蹿蹿:听I guess I've underestimated the interest there was in that event. I'll reiterate that I don't think you would've seen all that much from either team. The real chance to do that will be the exhibition against K-State in a couple of weekends.

Boston Mizzou:聽Can we play a men鈥檚 bball game in hearnes soon

贬辞蹿蹿:听I wish that exhibition against K-State was played in Hearnes for old time's sake. It's pretty clear that facility isn't going to be around forever, and I think it'd be awesome if MU did one more game in there before it goes. Schedule a team from the past, fire up some old-school graphics and take a trip down memory lane.

顿颁骋:听Will Drink/Moore be less conservative with game planning, downfield throws, and going for it inside the 10? I don't think Mizzou can settle for FGs when we all know the secondary is going to give up some big plays now that Bama's passing game is on fire.

贬辞蹿蹿:听I can see it. This is not a game where MU can really afford to miss field goals, and that'll be the case for just about every game moving forward. Empty red zone possessions, in particular, cannot happen. If this is a high-scoring game like I think it will be, there's certainly more reason to be aggressive there. This is going to be a very interesting game from a control perspective and which team has it, or whether it oscillates back and forth. Mizzou has a path to being in the driver's seat with the running game, but long drives that don't score can forfeit that privilege very easily.

厂迟补迟别蝉尘补苍:听Beau has made turnovers the last few games. His play (staying in pocket & going through progressions) is more than Hardy will determine the outcome. Your thoughts

贬辞蹿蹿:听Interesting thought. Can't say you're wrong. The pocket feel stuff with Pribula has contributed to both sacks and turnovers. The latter would be quite costly in this game. There's also a world in which Alabama's defense decides that it will solely prioritize stopping Hardy and let Pribula do what he may. In that case, he certainly becomes more important. I'd still lean toward Hardy being the most important piece of this offense, but that doesn't mean you're off-base in thinking this way.

Boston Mizzou:聽Who has been your favorite person to interview this season

贬辞蹿蹿:听We mostly get players at a podium in a big lecture hall, which is a tough setting for them to feel comfortable, so I don't really judge any of them for seeming nervous up there. Brett Norfleet has a big personality and is funny. Kevin Coleman Jr. has had some good insight. Beau Pribula comes across as poised. The only player I've actually interviewed one-on-one this year is Damon Wilson II, and he was great.

厂迟濒碍颈诲:听What do you think about Mizzou鈥檚 DLine?

贬辞蹿蹿:听Strangely,聽I don't think the defensive line has been able to show off how good it is yet. The rushing and run-stopping have looked good so far, of course, but the blowouts have meant the best pieces of that line haven't really played as much as they will in SEC games moving forward. Sure, those games will be tougher, but I think you'll actually see more of an impact as they're asked to do even more.

Boston Mizzou:聽it鈥檚 quite impressive how our rb coach has gotten our rb鈥檚 to elite levels over the past few years.

贬辞蹿蹿:听The man to credit there is Curtis Luper, the running backs coach. Drinkwitz hired him from TCU right when he got here, but they'd overlapped at Auburn. Cool part of Luper's background: He was an air traffic controller in the Army.

顿颁骋:听I would be fine if Alabama tried this approach as I think Mizzou receiving corps is way deeper and more talented than Alabama's secondary. Let's face it--if Pavia doesn't turn it over twice inside the 10 against Alabama, that game goes down to the wire. They didn't have a lot of answers for him until they got the big lead (thanks to turnovers) and turned Vandy into a one-dimensional team. I think Mizzou has a l lot of answers of Bama wants to stack the box, especially if Moore finally lets Norfleet run wild over the middle. I don't see Alabama having an answer for that.

贬辞蹿蹿:听Good point about the Bama-Vandy game. Further adds to why the turnover margin will be important on Saturday (not that it ever isn't, but that could certainly dictate the control element).聽

I'm writing about this more in-depth for tomorrow's paper/site, but the analytics suggest Mizzou's up there with the best in the country against heavy boxes and when using two-tight-end sets. Some of that latter bit is because of how Moore can use Norfleet. So you're right, it's not like there's an inherent answer for Alabama to fall back on.

Boston Mizzou:聽How arw coach CY and the Cleveland state coaches adjusting to their new roles

贬辞蹿蹿:听Missouri hosts Cleveland State this year, so we'll all get a great look at how Rob Summers is doing in Year 1 there. CSU was picked 8th out of 11 teams in the Horizon league, which isn't bad for a new coach.

The ACC preseason poll isn't out yet but it seems like Miami, where C.Y. Young is an assistant now will be around the middle of the pack.

Boston Mizzou:聽What are your favorite Mexican and pizza places in Columbia

贬辞蹿蹿:听For pizza, in order: Pizza Tree, Shakespeare's, Gumby's. Pizza Tree if I want a whole pie to take home, Shakes if I want slices for lunch, Gumby's if I want to hang out, especially when I was at MU as a student on NFL Sundays.

For Mexican, it's a little spot called El Fogon Veracruzano, which is in downtown on the north side of Broadway. Only place in town that I would classify as both authentic and good.

Boston Mizzou:聽Who is your favorite athlete of all time

贬辞蹿蹿:听I'll give two from my childhood: Joe Mauer and Eli Manning. I badly wanted to be a catcher when I was a kid, and every Twins fan loved having a hometown guy in Mauer. I'd ask for sideburns like his when I got my haircut, which never quite grew in. And then I liked Manning because he had the same name as me, which wasn't a very common one, and he played QB.

罢别谤谤测:听If Hardy rushes for 200-300 yards and MIZ wins this game, how likely is Hardy to get into the running for Heisman? Can a RB win the Heisman in this day and age?

贬辞蹿蹿:听He's already on the fringes of the Heisman discussion, but he definitely enters the "race" for it with a good showing this weekend 鈥� mostly because a lot of people will be watching it. It's absolutely possible for a running back to win it. A QB will always be more likely, but Cody Schrader got some votes in 2023. I voted Ashton Jeanty first on my ballot last year, and I think everyone agreed that if it wasn't for Travis Hunter playing both sides of the ball, Jeanty deserved it. Unless a quarterback emerges in the back half of the season as the clear best player, I could see another position being competitive in the balloting.

Boston Mizzou:聽When you write your game day stories, do you watch the live game or on the tv monitors.

贬辞蹿蹿:听Just about always the live game. I'm in person at every football game, home and away. I cover just about every home basketball game in person, too, unless I'm on the road for football. I don't travel for many basketball road games, so in that case I usually have the TV broadcast on but muted and listen to the radio call. Obviously I prefer to be on-site for everything I can be.

罢别谤谤测:听Eli, last year MIZ faced a make or break type game after the BYE when they got beat by TexasA&M. At some point after the game, Drink make a comment like the coaching staff or him used the bye week wrongly and they complicated things for the players somehow. I'm not sure if he meant the playbook or what. Do you remember that? Do you have any insight into the coaching staff doing anything differently this time around? Thanks.

贬辞蹿蹿:听Mizzou definitely came out of the bye poorly last year. Some of what went wrong in that situation was the prep for A&M's QB situation (Drinkwitz publicly said it would be Reed, then it was Weigman who carved them up), and the coaches have not seemed happy with how the travel went. I'm not sure what that means, specifically, but it's why they did the trip to 最新杏吧原创 for a night before scrimmaging at Lindenwood to "practice" that element of it.聽

Drinkwitz said this week that he doesn't think the bye week was the issue last year and that it was more the other things. Still, this bye looked different than the first one of last year 鈥� not because of 2024 but due to what the staff felt this team needed at this point.

There's some more on the differences in here:

尝耻:听Please correct any of this if its wrong, but it seems like our defense has not done a ton of blitzing this year (likely because they haven't needed to). If they do bring pressure on Saturday to mitigate the mismatch in their secondary, do you expect it to be zone or man blitzes?

贬辞蹿蹿:听There aren't great stats to see how often college defenses blitz across games, but I suspect you're right. Against South Carolina, for example, Mizzou only blitzed on five of LaNorris Sellers' 35 dropbacks. And generally, Batoon has been less blitz-prone than Blake Baker.

This might be something that the coaches need a series or two to sort out. If the corners can hold up OK in coverage, maybe it can be man stuff. If Simpson isn't reading the zones as well as he was against Vandy, maybe that's OK. Regardless, it feels to me that it's going to be crucial for MU to be able to get pressure with just the base four-man rush. I don't know how much can be spared from the back end to blitz, particularly when Simpson is good at picking that out and replacing the rusher with the ball.

尝耻:听My weekly discussion on the cataclysmic shifts we might see in college football in the coming decades:

Auburn giving away a home game for the aflac kickoff game next year got me thinking... the blood donor games at the beginning of the season are something of an economic inefficiency. Certainly at present ADs and HCs schedule non-con games with making the play-off in mind (hence the blood donor games). But at a certain point will the depressed revenue from those games (relative to conference matchups) overcome the opportunity cost? Eventually the playoff will expand and taking a tough loss in the non-con will not hurt as much. Could this incentivize teams to schedule in such way that maximizes their profits and national profile? Could you imagine a non con slate where Mizzou played kU, Illinois, Nebraska?

贬辞蹿蹿:听Yes and no, and this has some really interesting elements.

In a vacuum, there's more money to be made by playing better teams 鈥� both in terms of stadium revenue (tickets sold, parking, concessions, etc) and TV revenue. ESPN would rather have Mizzou-Illinois than Mizzou-Northern Illinois. Not rocket science, and that's why these leagues are now going to nine conference games: They can now add another valuable game to the schedule and TV inventory each year.

There are different costs and benefits to scheduling certain nonconference opponents. Let's take the competitive/resume/playoff/quality element out of this for a second. If Mizzou schedules another power conference opponent, whether that's one of the ones you mention or someone else, it's going to benefit from hosting that game because it's more likely to sell out, going to get better TV slot, etc. Except in every power conference noncon game, somebody is the road team and therefore giving up a home game. That's why Missouri is at Kansas next year. It's why Boston College was a home-and-home. Same for K-State, as far as recent examples go. And in the away years, that's not as valuable.

When it's against a lesser program, it's not usually a home-and-home. Louisiana came to CoMo, but Mizzou's not making that return trip. So MU pays ULL the guarantee instead of providing revenue by playing a game there. This is the norm, as I think we all know. (And Missouri has deviated from it because of contracts agreed to by previous admins that opted to play games at, say, UMass instead of pay up.)聽

Just because it's a lesser opponent does not mean Mizzou can't sell out its stadium. If the Tigers are good enough, that game will still draw聽蝉辞尘别听TV attention.

So the math comes in at a certain point. Across a two year span, is it better to host two lesser teams that will cost a guarantee and some prestige but both be home games? Or is it better to schedule another power conference team to get one better home game but play once at their place? This is the (very basically described) dilemma.

What's not your question but interesting to me is how some of the Group of Six programs that live to be paid for a pummeling (see: Kent State) in noncon games will fare with the teams that usually beat them up ditching a noncon game for a conference game. Is less money going to trickle down from the SEC to, say, the Sun Belt? What'll that mean?

And that's where we'll wrap up today's chat. Thanks for all of the questions, and enjoy the big one on Saturday. Same time next week!

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