Who’s your favorite 2017 Missouri signee? Tyree Gillespie might deserve a few votes.

We’re at a strange spot on the calendar at the moment. The 2017 football recruiting cycle is over, and we’re slowly switching gears to spring sports and (gulp) basketball coaching change season. But in the meantime, football recruiting remains a primary topic as the calendar flips from 2017 to 2018.

2017

Back in December, I wrote about talent evaluation being the key to future Mizzou success, and I pointed to late 2016 gets like Damarea Crockett and Dimetrios Mason as proof of both concept and hope. The Mizzou staff seems pretty excited about this year’s late gets, too, particularly safety Tyree Gillespie and tackle Kobie Whitlow. PowerMizzou wrote about Gillespie on Monday.

Needs to work on his tackling fundamentals. Can play in the box and is aggressive at the line of scrimmage. Has excellent ball skills and range, high points the ball and has a good catch radius. Not a ton of film of him playing safety, but from what film there is, he has all of the tools and looks physically ready to play at the next level/contribute on special teams right away.

I do think a lack of experience was one of the primary reasons behind his two-star Rivals rating. The film that exists shows a world of potential.

Meanwhile, Black & Gold Illustrated looked at 2017 class superlatives.

2018

PowerMizzou/Rivals talked to a couple more key 2018 targets: Kamryn Babb and Dallas Craddieth. Meanwhile, if the P-D’s Jeff Gordon is talking about Mizzou football in February, you know that a) it’s probably going to be high on generalizations, and b) the conventional wisdom has taken shape regarding the importance of the next year, both in terms of recruiting and performance.

But the program is especially excited about speedsters Johnathon Johnson and Dimetrios Mason, two members of the Freshman All-SEC team. They can stretch the field, and Lock has the arm strength to reach them.

The more offensive coordinator Josh Heupel leaned on his freshman skill players last season, the better the Tigers played.

“We’ve got 10 offensive starters back,” Odom told boosters last week on the public relations trail. “We had a 3,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard receiver, and 1,000- yard rusher. I think there were two other schools in the country that can say that, and we have those guys coming back, so we should be better on offense.”

But about that defense ...

More Links

• Former Rock M’er Ron Davis wrote about Frankie Hughes’ struggles (and his hard work) for The Missourian.
• The Post-Dispatch has a solid piece on Mizzou’s MMA guys — Tyron Woodley, Ben Askren, and Michael Chandler — and in the middle of it, it hit me: It’s already been almost nine years since Askren went to the Olympics. Goodness, we’re all getting old.
• Another publication, another preseason All-American spot for Tanner Houck.
• Well that didn’t take long: The Kreklows have already found their replacement for former assistant Deng Yang.
• Spring golf season is almost upon us!