There’s been a new arms race brewing over the last couple of years: the analyst arms race. Alabama’s got like 114 of them, and they all seem to be former head coaches. Well, it appears Mizzou’s going to have one of its own*.

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PowerMizzou was the first to report on Sunday that former UAB head coach and Northwestern, Arkansas, Louisville, and Illinois offensive coordinator Garrick McGee will be joining the staff in an analyst role.

Five things to know about McGee:

1. After beginning his playing career at Arizona State, the Tulsa native finished with two years at OU. He threw for 2,449 yards over those two seasons, mostly in 1994. He became a backup to Eric Moore when Howard Schnellenberger took over in Norman in 1995.
2. He landed the offensive coordinator gig at Northwestern in 2006 when Pat Fitzgerald took over as head coach, but after finishing no better than 73rd in scoring offense, his gig lasted only two years.
3. His coaching career took off when he connected with Bobby Petrino. From Northwestern, he ended up QBs coach at Arkansas when Petrino took over in 2008. Within two years, he had become offensive coordinator, and the Hogs went 21-5 with him as head of offense (though Petrino himself is always kind of the head of his offense).
4. The success in Fayetteville earned him the UAB job. It didn’t go well. He went 5-19 in Birmingham and 3-13 in C-USA play, and by 2014, he was back with Petrino, this time at Louisville.
5. In 2016, Lovie Smith brought him to Champaign to call plays. It didn’t go well. Illinois was 122nd in scoring offense in 2016 and 127th last fall. Smith replaced him with former Arizona offensive co-coordinator Rod Smith.

McGee has held some pretty lofty positions but hasn’t necessarily thrived in them. No matter — anything he adds to the equation as an analyst will be a bonus. Technically he could be next in line (or at least hope to be next in line) if things go well for Derek Dooley this year and Dooley ends up a head coach somewhere, but ... that’s a few toadstools away.

* The Tigers have five other analysts already, but McGee’s the first former head coach. Thought I should clarify.

Some more McGee reading material:

• Post-Dispatch. “Analysts do not count among the 10 on-field assistants allowed by the NCAA to coach players during games and practices. Neither are they allowed to recruit prospects off campus. Teams are not limited in how many analysts they hire. Mizzou currently lists five analysts on its roster: Austyn Carta-Samuels and Adam Kleffner on offense; Sam Carter and Neal Renna on defense; and Dave Ungerer on special teams.”
• The Trib. “Altogether, he’s been an offensive coordinator for eight seasons at the Power 5 level, which includes time at Northwestern, Arkansas and Louisville. McGee, who will serve under Missouri offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Derek Dooley, will be the only member of the football staff with previous experience as an offensive coordinator.”
• KC Star. “McGee’s coaching career began in 1996 at Langston University, a historically black college in Oklahoma. He has also worked at Northern Iowa, Toledo, UNLV and Northwestern. Like Dooley, McGee has also spent time in the NFL. The 45-year-old McGee was a quality control coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars during 2000-01.”

This Weekend at Rock M

More Links:

• Oh, Claire.

• Want some spring game reading material? Here you go:

• Man, Mizzou Softball has been a different team these last few weeks. Starting with the comeback win over No. 13 LSU two weeks ago, the Tigers hung tough for three games at No. 5 Georgia, taking one game and nearly taking another, and this past weekend against No. 8 Auburn, despite yet again getting screwed over by Mother Nature, they pulled off another huge comeback to take Game 1, then won Game 2 easily. (Game 3 was canceled, of course, because the weather refuses to do anything but suck.)
  
  They’ve now won five of seven overall, with four of the wins coming against top-15 teams, and they’re up to 11th in the SEC standings, just a game and a half out of 10th. Hell, they’re going to be really close to the RPI top 20. They may just need to stay above .500 to get into the NCAAs. This is what Gina Fogue needed to do to change from interim head coach to just head coach.

• Mizzou Baseball didn’t fare quite as well at No. 1 Florida. The Tigers lost a Friday night pitchers’ duel, 3-1, gave up six runs in the seventh inning of game two to fall, 10-2, then gave up five in the eighth, to fall 7-2 in the finale.
• Mizzou Track & Field threw well in Fayetteville. At the John McDonnell Invitational, the Tigers won discus, hammer, shot put, and javelin events. (High jump, too, but that didn’t fit the throwing theme.)
• Mizzou Tennis finished SEC play 0-13 but did manage to take a pair of duels from Savannah State to finish the regular season. They’re 13-16 overall, and they’ll get 7-15 Arkansas in the SEC Tournament on Wednesday.