1. Sporting News predicts Missouri to the Music City Bowl

Yeah, the season hasn’t even begin yet, but Bill Bender of the Sporting News predicts Missouri will face N.C. State in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl on Dec. 28 in Nashville.

(It’s on Slide 7 of the slideshow, if you want to scroll over to find it.)

As for Bender’s SEC predictions, pretty standard — Georgia from the East, Alabama from the West with the Crimson Tide winning the SEC Championship game.

Last year, the Music City Bowl saw 10-3 Northwestern beat 7-6 Kentucky; a year before that, it was two 9-win teams in Nebraska and Tennessee. A Dec. 28 trip to Nashville — post-Christmas, pre-New Year’s — sounds like a pretty good postseason prize to me.

2. Letters from Camp!

Before we get into the position-by-position camp coverage, there’s this:

Offensive line

Mizzou’s offensive line out to earn respect, via Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Is Missouri’s offensive line really upset over not having an all-conference selection?, via the Kansas City Star

Special Teams

Missouri entering 2018 in good hands at punt returner, via Daniel Jones of the Columbia Daily Tribune

This section below is from Jones’ story, and I think this has been an overlooked storyline. Richaud Floyd has the chance to be special this year at returner:

Jones writes:

Floyd only returned 11 punts last year, not enough to qualify for national or conference rankings in terms of average yards per return. His 19.2 yards per return would have been amongst the national leaders if he had. His two punt return touchdowns still tied for second-most in the nation. Before the 2018 season, national analyst Phil Steele rated Floyd as the best punt returner in the country.

Yesterday at Rock M

• EJ Liddell reveals his top 5, and more recruiting notes from Sam Snelling and Matthew Harris
• Mizzou in the Pros — how former Missouri stars are faring in the NFL’s preseason, by Josh Matejka
• Bill’s 5 favorite Mizzou DEs of the past 20 years

More Links:

• Welcome Anne Rogers back to the beat! Anne is really talented and did great work for PowerMizzou.com last year.

• 247Sports picks the 18 best SEC games for 2018, and none involve Missouri — yet Arkansas vs. Texas A&M is one? Huh?
• Mizzou women’s basketball announced its non-conference schedule on Monday. Some tough games included — but Mizzou should be setting up for a dang good season under Robin Pingeton.