Happy Friday The 13th ... dunh dunh DUNNNNNNNNH...
Mizzou Football Links
Yesterday at Team Speed Kills, cocknfire took a look back at the 2005 Independence Bowl and its impact on the Missouri football program.
For South Carolina, the win proved to be little more than another speed bump in the rocky beginning of Steve Spurrier's tenure. But some Missouri fans make a convincing case that the game was a turning point of sorts for the program, and Rock M Nation named it the seventh-best Missouri moment of the 2000s. It definitely seems to mark the beginning of an upward trend that paved the way for the idea of the Tigers entering the SEC.
It was also not the first time that South Carolina had its heart broken by Missouri after a successful season, at least by Gamecock standards. In 1979, the Gamecocks were ranked 16th heading into the Hall of Fame Bowl before Missouri defeated them 24-14. South Carolina fell out of the Top 20 rankings, which is as far as the AP poll went in 1979.
So there's the upside for South Carolina: Missouri can never again ruin a season in the bowl. But they'll still be more than capable of doing it in the middle of the season. The Gamecocks are the last team who would be able to claim it came as a surprise.
He also linked to an old piece of mine that I really enjoyed and hadn't read in a while.
I'm the first one to tell you that bowl game results are often overstated and overestimated in terms of predicting a team's future success. And in Missouri's case, it was doubly hard to project greatness on future Mizzou squads because Brad Smith had accounted for 431 of Mizzou's 504 Indy Bowl yards, and Brad's career was over. But three years later, the facts say something pretty clear.
* Since that Indy Bowl win, Missouri has now gone 29-9, their best 3-year win total ever. Chase Daniel has been the single biggest reason for those 29 wins, and he only played about 6 snaps in the Indy Bowl, but if Missouri hadn't bounced back from the wretched first 25 minutes in Shreveport, we may have never seen Chase Daniel get the chance to succeed here. For all we know, a 45-7 loss could have resulted in Pinkel's firing and Daniel's transfer. […]
And wherever Missouri heads after Chase Daniel, Chase Coffman, William Moore, Tommy Saunders, and the rest of this "Greatest Senior Class in Missouri history" departs, I can say that everything I know about the Missouri program right now--the national perception, the improved facilities, the All-Americans, the all-but-lifetime contract in store for Gary Pinkel--might not have happened if not for the second half of the 2005 Independence Bowl, and everybody who had a part to play in that game but wasn't around for Mizzou's surge in success (Brad Smith, Marcus King, Tony Palmer, Derrick Ming, etc.) gets a giant tip of the cap.
Sometimes bowls mean nothing, sometimes they mean everything, and you never really know in advance which it's going to be. Mizzou has been to Shreveport three times in the last decade; the first and third trips were of little impact to the program overall, but the second trip meant the world.
The 2005 Indy Bowl seemed to help push Mizzou to better things, but at this point both South Carolina and Mizzou are in much better shape than they were six and a half years ago. Anyway, it was a fun look back. To the links! Perfect mailbag satchel answer by Dave Matter on SEC size below, by the way. Alabama and Georgia are huge, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.
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All-SEC
The Trib: Four Tigers land on SEC preseason coaches team
KC Star: Four Tigers make the coaches' preseason All-SEC team -
2012
Post-Dispatch: Expect a lot of MU football on TV this season
The Trib (Dave Matter): The Friday Twitter Satchel@CoryRadford79 Has there been a change in Mizzou's football training this offseason to possibly get a little bigger to compete in the SEC? I asked Pinkel that very same question back in the spring and he completely dismissed the premise. I believe his exact answer was, "No, no, no, no…." His point was Missouri played good personnel in the Big 12 – he mentioned Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska — but there are more quality teams in the SEC. I also think it’s a myth that SEC players are universally bigger than players at the same positions in the Big 12. The hitting and the violence and the physical play might seem more explosive in the SEC, but my guess is that has more to do with speed than size. Check out the sizes of LSU’s defensive players. LSU’s two All-SEC defensive ends are in the 240s. That’s no bigger than what you see in the Big 12. Same is true for Florida, South Carolina, Auburn, etc. Now, Alabama has some massive dudes on defense, but the Tide play an NFL version of the 3-4 defense that employs oversized D-lineman, thicker inside linebackers and outside linebackers who look more like defensive ends. Georgia has similarly sized athletes in its 3-4 defense.
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QB No. 1
Post-Dispatch: James Franklin throwing, still on track -
Odom
The Trib: Barry Odom leaves comfort of MU to overhaul Memphis defense -
Walk-Ons
The Missourian: No guarantees for those hoping to walk on to Missouri football team -
Zo's Camp
Mizzou Network: Jeremy Maclin, Kevin Rutland & Chase Coffman together at Zo Williams' Camp
Other Football Links
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NCAA '13
SB Nation (Jason Kirk): The Worst 'NCAA Football 13' Simulated Season Ever
SEC
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Culture
And The Valley Shook: Mizzou and the Cultural Fit
Mizzou Diamond Sports Links
In a nice, late get by Tim Jamieson, Webb City star Breckin Williams, the No. 10 recruit in the state of Missouri according to Prep Baseball Report, signed with Mizzou yesterday. Huzzah!
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2012 Recruiting
SimmonsField.com: 2012 MU Baseball Recruit: Breckin Williams, OF/SS/RHP -
2012
The Trib: MU baseball to play series at Southern Miss -
In The Pros
SimmonsField.com: Mizzou Baseball Diaspora: Gibby Good, Senne Hot -
SEC
SimmonsField.com: SEC Baseball: USC's Ray Tanner moves from Coach to AD
Other Mizzou Links
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Mizzou Golf
MUtigers.com: Long Completes Play At 2012 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship
The Trib: Long eliminated at Public Links