The Missouri Tigers Legends Draft: YOU decide! Who wins?

It’s finally over. 44 gentlemen from the University of Missouri football program have been drafted over 22 rounds. If you would like a refresher here are the links to visit each round:

Round XII (this has the halfway point breakdown and links to rounds 1-11)

Round XIII

Round XIV

Round XV

Round XVI

Round XVII

Round XVIII

Round XIX

Round XX

Round XXI

The Rosters

As a review, here’s a visual (and list) of each team. Team BK is the Black Team, Team Nate is the Gold Team:

Team BK is...

Black Team Offense

• Quarterback: Chase Daniel
• Running Back: Henry Josey
• X-Receiver: Emanuel Hall
• Y-Receiver: Jeremy Maclin
• Z-Receiver: Justin Gage
• Tight End: Michael Egnew
• Left Tackle: Mitch Morse
• Left Guard: Tony Palmer
• Center: Evan Boehm
• Right Guard: Connor McGovern
• Right Tackle: Rob Droege

Black Team Defense

• Defensive End: Aldon Smith
• Nose Tackle: Lorenzo Williams
• Defensive Tackle: C.J. Mosley
• Defensive End: Markus Golden
• Weakside Linebacker: Sean Weatherspoon
• Middle Linebacker: Cale Garrett
• Strongside Linebacker: Kentrell Brothers
• Cornerback: E.J. Gaines
• Free Safety: David Overstreet II
• Strong Safety: Pig Brown
• Cornerback: Kevin Rutland

And now, Team Nate is comprised of...

Gold Team Offense

• Quarterback: Brad Smith
• Running Back: Tony Temple
• X-Receiver: Danario Alexander
• Y-Receiver: Chase Coffman
• Z-Receiver: Dorial Green-Beckham
• Tight End: Martin Rucker
• Left Tackle: Justin Britt
• Left Guard: Max Copeland
• Center: Adam Spieker
• Right Guard: Kurtis Gregory
• Right Tackle: Tyler Luellen

Gold Team Defense

• Defensive End: Kony Ealy
• Nose Tackle: Sheldon Richardson
• Defensive Tackle: Justin Smith
• TIGER (Rush End): Shane Ray
• Weakside Linebacker: Andrew Wilson
• Strongside Linebacker: Brock Christopher
• Outside Linebacker: Charles Harris
• Cornerback: Carl Gettis
• Free Safety: William Moore
• Strong Safety: Anthony Sherrils
• Cornerback: Aarion Penton

The Stats

Passing

BK - 12,773 yards/105 touchdowns/45 interceptions

Nate - 8,713 yards/58 touchdowns/32 interceptions

Rushing

BK - 4,423 yards/40 touchdowns

Nate - 6,887 yards/73 touchdowns

Receiving

BK - 8,542 yards/65 touchdowns

Nate - 9,192 yards/89 touchdowns

Tackles

BK - 2,156

Nate - 2,243

Tackles for Loss

BK - 247

Nate - 246

Sacks

BK - 87

Nate - 86.5

Forced Fumbles

BK - 17

Nate - 37

Interceptions

BK - 36

Nate - 36

The Strategy

Nate - Gold Team: When I let BK go first I knew he was going to take Chase Daniel. Here are the other things I knew:

• Missouri has had SO MANY excellent pass rushers in the past 20 years
• Missouri has also had many game-breaking pass catchers from 2000-2020
• Missouri does not have a lot of elite secondary players

So, if BK was taking Ol’ Number Ten and there weren’t going to be a lot of elite corners I could draft on to a team, I wanted to utilize Mizzou’s historical strength to counter it and basically pack my defense with every awesome pass rusher I could get on the field at the same time which meant...3-4 defense, baby! I didn’t get all of the ends that I wanted (Markus Golden was near the top of my list) but I did get the biggest steal in Justin Smith. I remember someone commenting earlier in one of our draft pieces that we should have picked Justin Smith way earlier to which I wanted to scream “SHHHHHHHHHH”: Smith played in 2000 when BK wasn’t even born yet (kidding, of course...he was at least 2 years old) and I was banking on him forgetting that part so I could get some other contested pieces. And I was right!

So, my defensive approach was “pass rush flood” and then nab at least one of the two excellent safeties and corners, which I did. The disruption my front seven can make should, in this hypothetical sense, force Daniel to constantly be uncomfortable. We saw Oklahoma and Texas do that effectively in ‘07 and ‘08.

On offense, I knew I was picking the other great quarterback of our lifetimes, Brad Smith. Brad was a good passer, yes, but his real strength was his legs. I almost went triple option, and have him flanked by Tony Temple and Marcus Murphy in the slot back position that dump Zack Abron as a fullback and run roughshod on BK’s defense. But that would ignore the aforementioned elite pass catchers Missouri has had, so I compromised and went pistol offense. The Pistol uses both quarterback and running back as equal contributors in the run game and requires the receivers to do a lot of edge blocking. So I took two of the tallest, most dynamic receivers Missouri has had (Danario and DGB) then also steal BOTH Chase Coffman and Martin Rucker as big bodies that can block and impact the passing game.

BK definitely geared up to stop my running attack, but I feel confident Brad could find an open guy with those four running downfield while the defense shadows Brad to try and stop his running.

One thing that I absolutely had an intention on doing - and almost succeeded - was having a team almost completely constructed of Missouri kids. Other than Brad, Danario, and Mad Max, every guy on my roster is from the Show Me State. Pretty good!

Nate’s Top 3 Steals

• Justin Smith
• William Moore
• The Rucker/Coffman tandem (sorry, BK)

Nate’s Top Misses

• Justin Gage
• Pig Brown
• Every linebacker BK drafted :(

BK - Black Team: As Nate said, I knew from the moment I got the #1 pick that I would be taking Chase Daniel. He’s the clear-cut best Mizzou player at his position over the last 20 years.

That became a significant part of my strategy: Pick players with the widest gap from the top player to whoever is the second best at that respective position. That’s how my top 5 picks became Chase Daniel, Sean Weatherspoon, Jeremy Maclin, Aldon Smith and E.J. Gaines.

I feel like that’s a pretty significant portion of the blue chip Mizzou players from the last 20 years.

I absolutely love the way my offense turned out. Chase Daniel throwing with the speed of J-Mac, Justin Gage and Emanuel Hall is flat out terrifying. Henry Josey is (in my opinion) the obvious choice as the best Mizzou running back of this era. I’m not sure you can get much more athletic up front than having Mitch Morse, Tony Palmer, Evan Boehm, Connor McGovern and Rob Droege.

On defense, I wanted to be able to size up with Nate’s offense. It became clear pretty early on he was planning to go heavy on the rushing offense. Why wouldn’t you if you have Brad Smith as your quarterback? So I went heavy on front seven players who can defend the run: Markus Golden, Zo Williams, C.J. Mosley, and for my money the three best Mizzou linebackers I’ve watched over the last 20 years in Spoon, Cale Garrett and Kentrell Brothers.

The tough part was filling in the secondary. I knew I wanted Pig Brown after Nate sniped Willy Mo from me. I think I filled in the gaps nicely with David Overstreet II and Kevin Rutland.

In the end, I’m happy with the roster I was able to put together. I had one massive miss in overlooking Justin Smith’s 2000 season (I’ll never forgive myself for that), but I ended up selecting the vast majority of the players I was targeting.

BK’s Top 3 Steals:

• Aldon Smith (Round 4)
• Pig Brown (Round 12)
• Mitch Morse (Round 13)

BK’s Top 3 Misses:

• Justin Smith

*** BIG GAP ***

• Willy Mo
• Chase Coffman/Martin Rucker

As a side note...

Clearly the 2007-2008 and 2013-2014 squads accomplished way more than most Missouri teams over the past 20 years. So how many starters did we draft from those four teams?

2007-2008: 15

2013-2014: 14

All other years combined: 15

Kinda figures, right?

TIME TO VOTE!

So...in a hypothetical world where we could assemble all 44 of these guys in their prime and have them suit up and play against each other, who would win? Vote and let us know in the comments!