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1. Jalen Knox, Tucker McCann get weekly honors after their Purdue performances.
I’m sure many Missouri fans are still trying to contextualize what the 40-37 win over Purdue means in the long term for Missouri, but despite a sloppy-yet-exciting game, a few Tigers picked up some awards this week.
Receiver Jalen Knox was named the SEC’s freshman of the week after his five catch, 110-yard, 1 TD day against the Boilermakers:
Caught a career-high 5 passes for 110 yards and scored his first collegiate TD helping @MizzouFootball to a 40-37 road win at Purdue.@JalenKnox9_ is the #SECFB Freshman of the Week. pic.twitter.com/d1AUw2TuvO
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) September 17, 2018
As an aside, is anyone worried about the depth of the receiving corps anymore? Anyone? Me either. Missouri doesn’t have the size at receiver like it did in 2013, but this appears to be the most talented group since then.
Tucker McCann was named the Lou Groza Award “star” of the week after going 4-for-5 on field goals and 4-for-4 on PATs against Purdue. Which, I watched the whole dang game and wrote on it and didn’t even realize Missouri’s offense had to settle for five field goal attempts.
TUCK #Mizzou K @tuckermccann named @LouGrozaAward Star of the Week
— Mizzou Football (@MizzouFootball) September 17, 2018
https://t.co/GlbWDWDC6C#MIZ #ShowMe pic.twitter.com/O0Z38OTloY
His only miss was the blocked 50-yard attempt which was a tough situation in the first place.
2. Drew Lock gets some love, too.
I guess you can consider a 375-yard, 4 total-TD game “quiet” when the opposing quarterback throws for 572 yards, but I’m kind of surprised that Drew Lock’s performance against Purdue is drawing more and more national attention.
First, it impressed Kirk Herbstreit, who included Lock on his list of top Week 3 performances:
My top PERFORMANCES of WEEK 3
— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) September 17, 2018
Teams
1-@LSUfootball
2-@BYUfootball
3-@OhioStateFB
4-@CowboyFB
5-@TroyTrojansFB
5-@CuseFootball
Players
1-Dwayne Haskins Ohio State
2-Alan Bowman Texas Tech
3-Drew Lock Missouri
4-Jerry Jeudy Alabama
5-Grant Delpit LSU
Lock also moved up to the No. 1 QB spot on Chris Trapasso’s draft board for CBS Sports. Here’s part of what Trapasso said about Lock:
Most impressive performance I’ve watched from Lock. Seriously. Sure, it was against a Purdue team that lost at home to Eastern Michigan the week before, but the cannon-armed quarterback demonstrated a variety of NFL franchise quarterback skills and didn’t really make any major mistakes all evening. Oh, and he led a game-winning drive.
(Shhh... no one tell him about that pick.)
Finally, Lock saw his Heisman chances rise ever so slightly, moving from 40/1 to 33/1, according to Bovada. This week will be either the first real “Lock for Heisman” salvo... or the death knell for his Heisman chances. Play well and lead an upset against Georgia (or at least keep it close) and Lock’s chances will live another few weeks.
3. ‘Crootin news
First, some good news. Missouri will likely have a packed house of visitors on Saturday, and 4-star 2019 safety Jalani Williams will be one of them:
Will be taking my 2nd Official Visit to Mizzou this weekend !
— Jalani Williams ⁹ (@jalaniw9) September 17, 2018
Williams is from Parkway North in St. Louis, an area that Missouri is quietly dominating in the 2019 class — although there are a good number of highly ranked players left on the board from the St. Louis region.
Per Rivals, Williams has visited Oklahoma (April) and LSU (Sep. 7) and then will visit Alabama the weekend following this Missouri trip.
And now the bad news:
Christian Braun of Blue Valley NW has committed to KU.
— Gary Bedore (@GaryBedore) September 17, 2018
Oh well.
Yesterday at Rock M
- What Christian Guess means to the Missouri basketball roster, via Sam Snelling
- The often imitated, never duplicated Snap Counts by David Morrison (seriously, no one puts these into better context than David does)
- Breaking down the stats from Mizzou-Purdue, by Ryan Herrera
- Please God listen to my podcast.
More Links:
- A fun read from the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph, who wrote a preview of Albert Okwuegbunam around the premise of asking Georgia players if they can spell his name. NARRATOR: They couldn’t.
- Ben Frederickson asks how Missouri’s defense can be asked to keep up with Georgia’s offense. NARRATOR: They can’t. (via STLtoday.com)
- Dave Matter has some astute observations in his weekly game breakdown (via STLtoday.com)
- This is incredible:
.@RedditCFB Oklahoma State is using @THEGaryBusey on their new Jumbotron to scare opposing offenses. Quite frankly it scares the defense, offense, coaching staff, fans... literally everyone. pic.twitter.com/fZpWTAHb5J
— Travis Burns (@TravisB06052015) September 17, 2018