It's Cut to the Chase time!!

Q: Four years from now, do you think you’ll recognize what this offense looks like?

A: Probably not. A lot of questions were asked at Big 12 media days about the spread evolving. Each year it’s constantly changing. If you look at the playbook we had last year and the playbook we have this year, a lot of the main things are the same. A lot of the bread and butter things are the same. But we have eight, nine, 10 different plays that Coach (Dave) Christensen comes up with, which he likes to call gadget plays. We’ll go into every game with eight, nine, 10 gadget plays and we have to remember those so there’s 100 gadget plays by the end of the year. We’re constantly building. We’ll go back to the 2005 playbook and pull out some gadget plays that we think might work, tweak the way maybe one person blocks and it’s a whole different play.

It's hard to make a more definitive statement than Jeremy Maclin did last time he was in The Dome.  But if he wanted to make an even more definitive statement this time around, I wouldn't stop him.  Either way, Maclin knows he's a marked man, and it will be interesting to see how the offense gets him the ball if he's always double-teamed (at least).

No practice reports, but...notebooks!

• PowerMizzou: '"Our defense plays our offense all the time, so they're used to us throwing the ball all the time. That quarterback just did a great job," Pinkel said. "I think that our defense, we were just not a very experienced defensive football team. I think some players came around. I think what was huge for us last year was Pig Brown, to have an impact player like that where a guy can go in and make impact plays, significant plays to change games. I think we have a couple guys maybe this year that have the potential to do that too in William Moore and Spoon and some other guys. Hopefully we'll play better defense from page one."'
• Dave Matter: "Freshman George White has apparently moved from linebacker to defensive tackle. He lined up No. 4 at defensive tackle behind Ziggy Hood, Terrell Resonno and Jimmy Burge."

The Trib takes a look at Elvis Fisher and his general state of readiness.

The Missourian says that "bowl game atmospheres" really don't phase Mizzou anymore.

And for those Mizzou fans who are starting to get worried about all the crazy, unlucky things that could happen in three days, fear not--so is Gary Pinkel.

Today's Illinois links: 1) The Missourian says getting embarrassed in the Rose Bowl has been a good motivator for Illinois; 2) the Champaign News-Gazette gives us a glimpse at a depth chart, and 3) the Sun-Times predicts a Juicy Sequel.  Eww.

On the basketball front...Steve Walentik takes a look at how the freshmen are doing as they prepare for their Canadian field trip.

Finally, on the basketball recruiting front...Michael Snaer must be a Rock M Nation reader.  News of his 9/6 official visit to Mizzou came out directly after I mentioned him in the Links yesterday.  Meanwhile, The Trib takes a look at this week's commit, Keith Dewitt.