Spring practice (i.e. Player Profile Season) is wrapping up but not going quietly. Today The Missourian takes a nice look at Sean Weatherspoon.
“I expect the secondary to be a lot more physical (this season). These guys have been making a lot more big hits and making a lot more interceptions than this time last year (at spring practice),” Weatherspoon said. “It’s on the D-line and linebackers to get to the quarterback though.”
This year's decreased expectations could affect the turnout at Saturday’s annual Black and Gold game.
“There probably won't be a lot of publicity and hype,” Weatherspoon said, noting the game is not on ESPN like last year. “I think the true fans will be out there having a good time supporting Mizzou football.”
For some of the players, Saturday’s scrimmage is personal. Proving doubters wrong begins on Saturday.
“I want everyone to know this Missouri team, we’re not going anywhere. We’re here to stay as a top team in the nation,” Baston said. “ Last year, I heard some comments that said after Chase Daniel leaves, that Mizzou will go back to old Mizzou. That’s not how it's going to be. Mizzou is here to stay.”
Tuesday Practice Links!
-
Dave Matter: Missouri Defense is Golden
-
PowerMizzou: Tuesday Practice Report
- Mutigers.com: Football practice winding down
- The Missourian: Missouri football still competitive in spring
Ziggy Hood: Moving on up...
As they've been doing the last week and a half or so, PowerMizzou continues its look at the top unit-by-unit targets for Mizzou in 2010. Today, the LBs.
To basketball, where The Missourian has a bit more on Mike Anderson's new contract...as does the KC Star, complete with the "destination job" quote...
To softball, where yet another Tiger takes home some hardware. Marla Schweisberger: Big 12 Player of the Week.
To baseball, where Mizzou once again lit up a lesser opopnent. Freshman Ryan Clubb had a lovely 4.1-inning start, Kyle Mach had four hits, Trevor Coleman had 3 RBIs, and Mizzou took out Indiana State, 8-1. PowerMizzou and The Missourian have more.
Rachel Phelps Watch: Mizzou now must go 16-7 the rest of the way to keep their NCAA Tourney streak alive. Coming up is another game versus ISU, then a three-game trip to Manhattan to take on a now-ranked Kansas State team. A 2-2 result in those four games would be tolerable, but at some point Mizzou has to come up big over the weekend, and they're running out of chances.
Finally, in case you hadn't read about it yet, now that Aaron O'Neal's family has settled with the university, depositions from the suit have been made public, and it doesn't make Mizzou look particularly great. There's not much to say about it, being that it's four years in the past and the suit has been settled, but...well, it still stings reading about this stuff.
It also brings up the big, tricky gray area of hard practices. Football practices--especially conditioning practices--are supposed to be hard, and they're going to kick some players' butts. If a player starts feeling faint, there's about a 99.6% chance that they're just getting their butts kicked, and they need to work through everything for better conditioning. Clearly that's how Rex Sharp treated the situation, and I can't necessarily blame him for it. It's just that treating situations like that opens you up for problems that other 0.4% of the time, and I have no idea how to tell the difference between the situations. Clearly understanding the sickle cell trait, who has it, and its overall implications is a good first start, and I'm sure, unfortunately, nobody knows more about the trait than our current staff, considering what happened almost four years ago.