As you heard yesterday I'm sure, Mizzou had only two players drafted yesterday--Will Franklin by the Chiefs and Martin Rucker by the Browns. Meanwhile, five more Tigers signed free agent contracts--Tony Temple and Darnell Terrell joined T-Rucker in Cleveland, Lorenzo Williams signed with Baltimore, Adam Spieker will play in Oakland, and Tyler Luellen gets to avoid sharks in San Diego. The Missourian caught up with the two draftees (as did the Post-Dispatch). From the Missourian:
"It felt really good to finally get my name off the board," Rucker said. "It was nerve-wracking a little, but at the same time, I wouldn’t let it get to me. I thought that there was a shot that I could go in the second, and when that didn’t happen, I was like, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ When I woke up today, I was waiting around and watching the draft a little bit, but not really watching it because I didn’t want to get caught up in it again. I was just waiting on the phone call."
When he got the phone call, he was surprised at who the team on the other end was. Rucker said he spoke to the Browns at the NFL scouting combine last month, but had little contact with them otherwise.
Rucker soon learned the surprise was mutual. Browns coach Romeo Crennel told him that Cleveland, who had no picks in the draft’s first three rounds, did not expect him to be there when the Browns finally got a chance to make a pick.
After getting selected, the two players reacted in different ways. Franklin, who was still just waking up, took a shower and said that he hadn’t had a celebration yet, other than sharing the moment with his family. Rucker said that once it became clear a general manager was on the line with him, he knew the celebration was coming.
"Everybody in the house was really happy," Rucker said. "They could tell by the way the person was talking. I was still on the phone when it came on the screen, and everybody just blew up."
Franklin also gets some love from his new hometown paper, the KC Star, and is the subject of a fantastic Rivals highlight video.
Sometimes it's best to just acknowledge that you ran into a buzzsaw. For Mizzou Baseball, that buzzsaw was named Texas A&M, which won its thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth straight Big 12 games at the expense of the Tigers this weekend. Mizzou went up 8-2 Friday night, and then ATM scored the next 24 runs of the series, winning 9-8 Friday, then 15-0 Saturday, and capping off the festivities with a 3-2 win in extra innings on Sunday. Mizzou is now a quite disappointing 9-9 in conference play. How bad is Mizzou's bullpen at the moment? After Rick Zagone got out of a jam in the ninth yesterday, was his day done after 145 pitches? Nope. Tim Jamieson decided Mizzou's best chance to win was to send him out for the 10th. He may have been right, unfortunately, but the first batter in the 10th hit a walk-off solo HR. Would have been quite nice to salvage that one, but oh well I guess. Coming off of a 1-4 week, Mizzou's got a huge rebound opportunity ahead--they face KU in Kaufmann Stadium tomorrow, then host K-State at Taylor Stadium this weekend. Any worse than 3-1 this week, and Mizzou's shots of hosting a regional are toast...if they aren't already.
One small bit of good news for Mizzou Baseball over the weekend: Max Scherzer was called up to the bigs by the best team in baseball, the Diamondbacks.
Meanwhile, Mizzou Softball fared a bit better, beating Baylor on Saturday before their home finale was rained out on Sunday. They still have a shot at 3rd in the conference and a 2-seed in the NCAAs.
Finally, back to the draft: Sunday Morning QB hurts his brain trying to think about why some players (Andre Woodson, Dan Connor in particular) dropped for no reason.