So I watched a bit of UNC-Duke last night just to see Dickie V back in action...turns out Duke is pretty damn good. Who knew? If I'm a Duke fan, I'm a little worried about their bigs, but they've got shooters and slashers on the outside, and their defense is pretty strong...which pisses me off, but whatever...
Mutigers.com has your official Signing Day release with blurbs on each new Mizzou football player. Everybody's got Signing Day articles, and I'm going to link to them all, but if you're only going to read one, I recommend this one from PowerMizzou. It's the coaches' takes on each player. Here are a couple of my favs:
Andy Hill on Andrew Jones...
"I talked to him more than I did my wife...The great thing is the kids he comes in contact with, either his high school teammates, kids he played against in high school or recruits across the country, they like the guy. He's infectious. He loves Missouri and wants to be successful here and he's smart enough to know that if I get other good players, I've got a better chance to be successful."
Craig Kuligowski on Gahn McGaffie...
"He could play five positions. Honestly. That's a nice thing to start off with right there. He is really interested in playing receiver...His high school coach, he's had kids go to Texas, kid go to Arizona when I first was down there, kid go to LSU, A&M, he's had all these kids go to different places and he's like, 'Coach, he's the best player I've ever had.' I was like, 'Really, you think so?' And he said, 'Coach, he's the best player I've ever had.' I was like, 'Okay, I like hearing that.'"
A round-up of other recruiting articles: New recruits should give Mizzou some staying power (the P-D's Jeff Gordon), Quarterback Gabbert headlines MU’s strong recruiting class (Missourian), Tigers land Pinkel's best recruiting class (Missourian), Missouri snags seven of the states top 10 players (KC Star), Tigers seal state's borders (Mike Dearmond's Vlog), Quick notes from Signing Day (Dave Matter's blog).
Recruiting's a hit-or-miss game, but the Matt Hayes of Sporting News reminds us that the elite QBs usually work out pretty well.
More times than not, the elite each year become the stars of the future.
This month, we welcome [Terrelle] Pryor, Blaine Gabbert (Missouri) and Dayne Crist (Notre Dame) to the club. If recent history holds form, the top three quarterbacks of the 2008 class will be playing for championships soon enough.
Other Gabbert-related articles: On Second Thought, It's Mizzou (Trib), Gabbert Airs It Out (PowerMizzou), Kemp Joins Gabbert at Mizzou (P-D).
One more piece of recruiting news: we've officially offered Montee Ball. If you're a PowerMizzou member, check out the message boards...looks like we've offered a couple others as well.
Oh yeah, and the Mizzou Women actually played pretty well against #10 Oklahoma yesterday, avoiding a blowout and actually closing to within 1 point with 45 seconds left...but still losing, 64-57. The Missourian has more.