Sunday live thread: Football scheduling is tricky, and 3 pitchers-to-be get drafted

1. Scheduling is hard

The Trib: Finding a football foe is chore for Missouri
The Trib (Behind the Stripes): Going Deep with MU Executive Associate AD Bryan Maggard

Now that the SEC has figured out its conference schedules through 2025, how much does that free you up to look to future non-conference schedules?

“It certainly opened up the floodgates, so to speak. We are diligently working on the 2015 schedule. It’s tight, as you can imagine, because programs schedule so far out and we were in a holding pattern, pretty much up until now. I’ll devote a great amount of my summer to trying to finalize that 2015 schedule. We are looking for two games in ‘15. Ideally, they’re both home games, because we’re right now slated to go to Arkansas State. That was a result of being in a similar pinch back in 2013, needing one game. Fortunately, the Sun Belt had some movement, so that opened up some schedules, but the only way Arkansas State would commit to coming here in ‘13 is if we would return that game in ‘15. Now St. Louis has reached out to Arkansas State, trying to see if they’d be interested in moving that game to St.Louis. But that’s a home game for Arkansas State, so that’s their call. We’d certainly support it, but that’s not our decision. And I don’t believe Arkansas State has made a decision on that yet. That’s out there. That could still happen. But, regardless, that’s not going to be a home game for us.

So basically, the rest of the 2015 non-con schedule might not be incredibly impressive. C'est la vie. Considering the potentially short road trips involved (even if Memphis gets moved), that should be a pretty solid schedule regardless.

2. The future gets drafted

The Trib: Three MU recruits drafted on Day 3

While we knew that Brett Graves was going to get drafted, and we knew that Keaton Steele going was a distinct possibility, the biggest names to watch for Mizzou and the draft were the ones who haven't yet dressed in Mizzou uniforms. Three players -- all pitchers, naturally: incoming freshmen Tanner Houck (12th round) and Bryce Montes de Oca (14th) and JUCO signee Nick Kiel (18th) -- were selected right in that strange middle ground. If a team misses on one of its higher picks, it might throw a decent amount of money at one of these (especially Montes de Oca, who apparently has a super-high ceiling but underwent Tommy John surgery a year ago). None of the three are guaranteed to sign, but my guess is that one of them will.

3. Horse racing is stupid

The last Triple Crown winner happened when I was minus-three months old. It's never, ever, ever going to happen again.