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What's On
Tonight is the official NFL Kickoff game between the Packers and the Seahawks at 7pm ET on NBC - we'll have a live thread up around 6pm.
Hangout
Mizzou
MU sack-masters face stingy opponent - Columbia Daily Tribune | Columbia Missouri: MU Football
There were no dances to accompany the takedowns, but Missouri sacked South Dakota State quarterback Zach Lujan three times in its 38-18 win Saturday. The Tigers extended their streak of games with at least one sack to 12.
Missouri running game overwhelmed South Dakota State on first downs | The Kansas City Star
Part of that was the success Missouri had on the ground, churning out 148 yards on those 23 first-down runs — an average gain of 6.4 yards.
Those figures include quarterback Maty Mauk’s 7-yard loss on a backward pass late in the second quarter when he flung the ball wildly toward the sideline while being spun around for a possible sack.
Remove that play from the equation and Missouri gained 155 yards on 22 carries, including Russell Hansbrough’s 14 carries for 105 yards and a touchdown, on first down.
What did you see as the benefit of going to Toledo to play this game?
That was kind of my decision. They asked me. They wanted to do it at Toledo. I thought, really, I'd be gone now. That they'd have fired me by now. I didn't plan on being here. All kidding aside -- that's not true -- they asked me if we would do it. We talked about it several years ago, going back, and I said I wouldn't mind doing it later on. This is the date they picked. Knowing the history of how well they play and their history of beating nationally ranked teams and top-level football teams, we don't do this very often. But we made the decision we would do this several years ago.
Cheadle said his cousin, actor Don Cheadle, was texting with his father throughout the game: "He showed me a text after the game that said, 'When are they going to put him in?!' Because we had a reasonable lead. I know he was watching." (Cheadle played the final three snaps of the game, on South Dakota State's last series.)
Missouri’s Tyler Hunt living every walk-on’s dream | The Kansas City Star
Hunt is a junior walk-on running back from Hunstville, Mo. — at least, he was until Pinkel called to say he was being put on scholarship.
Hunt’s first thought?
"Sweet, now I don’t have to worry about buying groceries," he said. "Now, I don’t have to worry about my rent that I was worried about for the coming semester. … It’s going to be covered, so that relieves a lot of stress off my shoulders."
Alden on Mizzou
Missouri is renovating the basketball locker rooms and other support areas at Mizzou Arena. Fans won’t see those upgrades, but they certainly will notice a new Panasonic video board set to be installed for the 2014-15 season. Plans also are advancing for a new indoor football practice facility behind the Mizzou Athletic Training Complex and a new softball stadium east of the Hearnes Center.
Alden on schedules, DGB, facilites : Sports
* That said, it "will be a really difficult thing" for Missouri to add a power conference team to the 2015 nonconference schedule, Alden said. Mizzou has two openings for nonconference games next year and Alden said one of those games could be on the road. Missouri is required to schedule one power conference team starting in 2016 per the SEC’s new scheduling mandate. In 2017-18, MU fulfills the requirement with a two-year series against Purdue.
* Missouri has not ruled out future neutral-site games, as long as the school maintains at least six games in Columbia. "St. Louis is very interested in the Tigers and I know Kansas City is very interested in the Tigers, too,
" Alden said. * Alden and Illinois athletics director Mike Thomas have had preliminary discussions about reviving the MU-Illini football series but nothing for "the near term."
Q&A with Athletic Director Mike Alden - Columbia Daily Tribune | Columbia Missouri: MU Football
Q: What was MU’s role in Green-Beckham’s waiver for immediate eligibility at Oklahoma, which the NCAA denied Aug. 22?
A: Any time a student-athlete leaves your program, the NCAA requires you to verify that they were there. That’s what you’re required to do, and that’s what we did. We verified that he was a part of our program, the issues that took place and that he was no longer a part of our program.
Q: So you were never asked to approve a possible waiver?
A: The NCAA never came to me and asked me about it.
Q: If the Green-Beckham incident hadn’t happened at a turbulent time for the department, would he still have been dismissed?
A: I really wouldn’t want to speculate on that. Were there a series of events we dealt with? Absolutely. But knowing we went through all of that, I don’t believe that contributed to us making that decision. We made that decision on its own. We reiterated to our students and coaches what our expectations were and that there are always consequences for our actions. I don’t know about necessarily making a statement.
College Football
A Defense to Match: Appreciating the Stingy Spartans in the Offensive Age | Grantland
How do they manage all that at once? Down after down, Michigan State lines up in what looks like the same basic, predictable front, with apparently the same coverage behind it: a "4-3 Over" front paired with "Quarters," which is also known as "Cover 4."2 The 4-3 Over is the oldest and most straightforward front in football, and it’s exactly what fans think of when they hear "4-3," as it features four defensive linemen and three linebackers behind them. Quarters or Cover 4 coverage is a little trickier. While it’s a zone coverage, it doesn’t merely call for four defenders to drop to a deep zone, as the name might seem to imply. It’s played with considerably more nuance, particularly at Michigan State.
Reminiscing on realignment
The Pac-12 takes a pass: A new realignment FAQ, starring another death-defying Big 12 escape - Dr. Saturday - NCAAF Blog - Yahoo! Sports (It really stinks that Mizzou didn't end up getting into the SEC.)
The Big 12 Conference should have listened to Kevin Weiberg | News OK
Kevin Weiberg isn’t the kind of guy to gloat. He always was low-key, even as commissioner of the Big 12 Conference.
So Weiberg isn’t saying I-told-you-so.
Even though he told us so.
Before Weiberg helped the Big Ten launch the Big Ten Network, and before Weiberg helped the Pac-10/12 launch the Pac-12 Network, he tried to talk his Big 12 constituents into a Big 12 Network. Tried to tell them that a conference television channel would produce financial bounty and exposure galore.
Weiberg never could sell it to enough Big 12 schools. The rich — Texas, OU, Nebraska and Texas A&M — figured they were better off keeping their options open. Figured they could do better on their own, with school-specific media-rights deals.
Now the Big Ten Network flourishes, the Pac-12 Network is part of a huge bonanza out West and the SEC Network has launched in the last two weeks with flare and hype that eclipses both.