SEC Media Days start this week... oh, and so does our preseason coverage!

What’s the date? It’s mid-August right? Time to start talking football in earnest?

Ah, crap, it’s only July 19? **** it. Let’s talk football anyway.

The big story of the week is, obviously, the return of SEC Media Days, where Eli Drinkwitz will make his debut (man, last year was weird) along with linemen Akial Byers and Case Cook on Thursday. We’ll get to that in a second.

FIRST OFF, however, is the outstanding, wonderful, unbelievable news that ROCK M PRESEASON FOOTBALL COVERAGE STARTS TODAY

Here’s what you can expect over the next few weeks:

• Roundtables Q&A’s. If you don’t know about our love for roundtables, you’re clearly new here. We’ll have one for each position grouping, first one drops later this morning.
• Newcomer features. For each position group, we’ll be featuring one newcomer we think brings a lot of promise to the roster, including future stars, instant impact guys, etc.
• Sidebars. We’ve got a talented stable of writers who have stories to tell, stats to analyze and feathers to ruffle (not really haha but maybe?). We’ll have sidebars that relate to each position group, including stories heading into camp, recruiting observations, etc.
• Whatever other goodies we can cook up. Idk, y’all, maybe we’ll mess around and do something else fun. Got any ideas? We’re open to them! Let’s hear them in the comments below.

OK, back to media days, because that’s where the actual links are.

As mentioned above, Mizzou doesn’t make its SEC Media Days appearance until Thursday, but there will be plenty to talk about as we wait. Dave Matter, helpful fellow that he is, compiled the top storylines of the event, including several that should catch Mizzou fans’ attention:

8. Vols makeoverThe Heupel experience should be fascinating to watch in Knoxville. The transfer portal gutted the Volunteers’ roster, and looming NCAA sanctions aren’t going to make the rebuild any easier for the first-year coach.

But the Vols can count on a more prolific offense under Heupel’s watch, assuming he settles on a quarterback from the stash of transfers he’s collected since taking over Rocky Top. The former UCF head coach and coordinator at Oklahoma and Mizzou doesn’t care much for the spotlight, but there’s no escaping the Hoover glare when he meets the media Tuesday.

That’s just one of 10 storylines, several of which involve the Tigers.

Oh, look an audio-visual element! Ahead of Mizzou’s trip to Hoover, Andrew Kaufmann at ABC 17 did his own preview of the media days.

Expect more Media Days stuff in the ensuing days, especially as coaches start popping off and saying wild stuff. There’s always something interesting to come out of this week.

Yesterday at Rock M

• In which Aaron Dryden encourages fans to step up and realize the impact they have on Mizzou sports

More Links:

• Eric Blum at the Tribune wrote about Kim English, #MizzouMade head coach at George Mason, and how he’s forging his own path across the college basketball landscape.
• Did you know Hatti Moore is a certified killer?

Oh you didn’t? Liar.

• Matt Harris did some Twitter sleuthing and noticed Mizzou Hoops’ coaches on the recruiting trail. See if you can spot them...
• Matt also had the chance to do some scouting of his own, and offered some insights on Mizzou offer Chandler Jackson.
• 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.
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