December Madness is Upon Us

While March Madness is my favorite kind of sports “madness”, I can see how football fans look to this time of year and just love the kickoff of National Signing Day for all its excitement and intrigue. I find myself paying more attention to it each year, most likely because of my work for this site, but also because we have a coach who is all in on the fanfare of it all and is bringing in quite the class, it appears.

We’ll have what amounts to be a metric ton of coverage the rest of this week about the commits, the recruiting misses, scholarship updates, what it means, etc. I will not be writing any of it, mind you, but my far more knowledgeable football colleagues will so make sure your eyes stayed glued to Rock M for all your info to see which graduating seniors officially become a part of #NewZou22.

It all kicks off this morning. By my light twitter searching (emphasis on light), the new class’ first signee will be Xavier Simmons, who plans to sign at 8:30.

As for what to expect, the Tribune’s Eric Blum looked at what to watch for on National Signing Day as Mizzou football expects a record-breaking class.

Missouri currently has 15 hard commits in its Class of 2022, headlined by Luther Burden. The St. Louis WR is far from the only blue-chip prospect, as six Tiger commits have a four-star rating, with Burden the only five-star pledge. All of Missouri’s blue-chip prospects are ranked inside the top 275 players in the 2022 class nationwide.

Sam Horn, a quarterback from Suwanee, Georgia, has been pledged to Missouri since February and is the No. 9 quarterback in his class, good enough to be No. 125 overall and the second-highest-rated MU commit.

El Paso, Texas, running back Tavourus Jones, as well as offensive lineman Deshawn Woods and defensive lineman Marquis Gracial, are all within the top 200.

Missouri natives Isaac Thompson and Ja’Marion Wayne should round out the blue-chip group inking their names to MU.

If we know anything about high schoolers and about college football coaches, there are sure to be some surprises throughout the coming days, so stay tuned.

Moving on. #AwardsSZN continues, and Harrison Mevis and Tyler Badie continue to rack up All-American honors. This time, it’s The Sporting News, who honored the Thiccer Kicker with first team honors, as well as Badie with second team honors.

On to the Links!

---

Yesterday at Rock M

• Aaron looked at who the Tigers could be adding to the roster, and the likelihood of seeing them in the black and gold. No Pancake puns, y’all… he picked Houston. [sad face]
• A new Dive Cuts talked about “The War Without the Fight.”

---

More Links:

Football

• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Dave Matter wrote about two-sport standout Sam Horn, who could be Mizzou’s franchise QB — sooner than later.
• Columbia Missourian: Calum McAndrew wrote about “the turning point”, where Darius Robinson credited Al Davis and the bye week for change in MU football’s fortunes, while Wilson Moore wrote about Mizzou’s incoming recruiting class.
• First Team All-American in our hearts. Also, isn’t this the pub that awarded him THIRD team? The disrespect… Lila Bromberg covered it for the KC Star.

Other Mizzou Sports

• Ms. Double-Double herself, Aijha Blackwell, became the first Mizzou Hoops player (men or women) to announce a major NIL deal! Perhaps following in the footsteps of Tyler Badie, who signed a partnership with Crumbl Cookies this fall, AB has signed a deal with Insomnia Cookies! SO MUCH CONGRATS to her on everything so far this season. By the way, if you haven’t read Hochman’s awesome article on AB, you should. It’s so good, guys.

• J-School winter grad, Joel Lorenzi, wrote a great piece on Aidan Shaw, who he watched play this weekend at the Norm Stewart Classic.
• The Missourian’s Nate Marcus looked at the SEC Women’s Hoops Teams, which are showing their dominance through the first month in women’s basketball.
• Listen to the recent Tiger Talks with Cuonzo Martin and Robin Pingeton!

• Love to see it.

Former Mizzou Players in the Wild

• Jeremiah Tilmon came off the bench in the Lakeland Magic’s loss to the G-League Spurs team, and played 9 minutes. Tilly scored 2 points on 1-3 shooting, with 3 REB, 2 TO, and 3 PF. In Saturday’s loss to the Squadron, he started, playing 18 minutes and scoring 4 points on 2-6 shooting, with 8 REB, 1 BLK, 3 TO, and 3 PF.

• DRUUUUUU and the Sioux Falls SkyForce had their games postponed on Sunday due to Covid issues, so no new updates there.
• Quin Snyder’s Utah Jazz took on the Wizards on Saturday, and won convincingly, 123-98. Jordan Clarkson played 25 minutes and scored 11 points on 5-11 shooting (0-4 from 3) with 3 REB, 1 STL, and a +9. The Jazz next plays tonight at 9 on ESPN.
• Earnest Ross! Because my guy plays overseas, I oftentimes forget to check up on him, and stats are hard to come by. However, I happened to see this on Twitter this weekend!

Here’s his stats from the last five games, in case you’re interested. Glad to see him doing well overseas. Way to go, Earnest!

• Vote for Larry Borom!

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

If you’re looking to sign up for ESPN+, Rock M Nation now has an affiliate link: click Here for ESPN+ Now!

If you’re looking to sign up for a new streaming service, you can try FuboTV: click HERE for FuboTV access — FuboTV now has ESPN, CBS, FS1 and more sports channels.

(** RockMNation has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though RockMNation may earncommissions for products purchased via affiliate links.**)