It’s Day Six of Camp!

Rock M’s very own Parker Gillam was on hand to watch the media-approved portions of practice, and had some thoughts. From his article, which you should read:

Personally, watching this team out on the field for the first time this season, some things stood out to me. Redshirt junior Bobby Lawrence is one of the few human beings that could make the rest of the team look small, as his 6’9” frame is impressive to take in in-person. On the opposite side, the listed 5’8” for Mookie Cooper may be generous. He looks smaller than expected in comparison to the rest of the WR corps, but his muscular build and speed certainly makes up for what he lacks in size.

In my eyes, one of Connor Bazelak’s biggest strengths is his placement. There were multiple balls dropped right in the receivers’ hands from tough angles during this scrimmage, although he was hurt by drops in many of those instances. After a full offseason, Bazelak looks more and more like a quarterback ready to become a household name.

To the video!

In other football news, the Reese’s Senior Bowl watchlist was released on Thursday — always a great event for our Tigers to participate in pre-draft — and four Tigers found themselves on the list: running back Tyler Badie, defensive tackles Akial Byers and Kobie Whiteside, and cornerback Akayleb Evans. You can read more about the February 5 game at MUTigers.com.

Onto the Links!

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Yesterday at Rock M

• In a new Dive Cuts pod, Sam and Matt discuss the hiring of DRF (as they’ve decided to call her) since there’s really no hoops news. Have a listen!
• Parker went to football practice and the media availability on Thursday and recapped what he saw.
• BK provided some analysis of the athletic director hire!

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More Links:

Football

• Dave Matter of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote about how Kobie Whiteside found his voice on the comeback trail after suffering an MCL tear last October.
• The Tribune’s Eric Blum wrote about transfer OL Connor Wood, who talked about his transition from living in Idaho and attending Montana State to a very humid Columbia and attending Mizzou.
• Briar Napier looked at how Realus George found his way back to D-line after stint as blue-chip fullback.
• In other College Football news, Louisville announced their vaccination protocols for media members this fall. Wondering how long it will be for other schools/conferences to share their own processes for the season? Y’all, go get vaccinated.
• Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated shared some interesting statistics from OpenDorse regarding NIL.
• Mike Kelly took a walk with DC Steve Wilks.

• LARRY BUDWEISER SASSER and LDW! The only acceptable Mizzou answer to this twitter question

Athletic Director News

• I highly suggest this read by Gabe DeArmond at PowerMizzou, about how new athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois’ brother, son, and family led her to Mizzou. She had talked in the press conference about how inspiring her brother is, and so Gabe went straight to the source to get more info on their relationship. Good stuff.

• Dave Matter was back with a new chat at STL Today. Topics include: scrimmage updates, Illini coverage in the PD (it comes from the company who owns them, not PD writers), telling people to knock off their asinine questions about DRF & virtue signaling, dispelling the Cuonzo-DRF conspiracy theories, and the ceiling of the football team. A couple highlights:

On Jim Sterk:

Most people who worked with Sterk appreciated and respected his integrity. But he didn’t have a dynamic personality. He wasn’t incredibly personable. His coaches didn’t know him well. When those relationships aren’t strong, distrust builds and morale sinks. And more than anything, the Drinkwitz hiring process exposed cracks in the foundation, even though it appears they landed a good coach.

On his opinion of DRF, which I think speaks volumes of her character:

I was impressed with her yesterday. She’s a very polished speaker but also very engaging, very personable, good sense of humor. After the televised press conference, she met with about eight or so writers in another room. She took the time to learn everyone’s name and where we’re from, where we work. She tested herself on knowing our names throughout the session. That might seem minor and unimportant, but in my history of covering introductory press conferences that is very unusual. With some coaches/ADs, I wasn’t sure they even knew my name for a couple years. That’s the sign of a person who values relationships - and that’s an essential part of being an AD. You can’t be aloof. To have a successful regime, she’s going to need to know the names, faces and backgrounds of far more important people than the local beat writer. The people I’ve interviewed and spoken to off the record who know her well all say similar things: She’s highly intelligent and incredibly driven. She’s tough. Nobody will walk over her.

• Congrats to our new AD, who was selected as one of the Sports Business Journal’s Game Changers for the Class of 2021. What does this mean? According to the article, 50 women in sports were selected as “the best thought leaders across their organizations, and their impressive work extends from events and venues to social responsibility and diversity, equity and inclusion. As their achievements have come in a largely male-dominated industry, these Game Changers also serve as role models and mentors to young women striving to enter and succeed in sports business.”

• From new Director of Operations for Mizzou Softball (and peep who liked my response):

Hoops

• Chef Boogie?

• Want to check out Mama Dembele in the FIBA U-19 Quarterfinals?

• Get you a teammate like Micah Linthacum!

Other Mizzou Sports

• Well, this is cool. Mizzou Soccer will be offering free admission to all home games this season. From Coach Stefanie Golan, on MUTigers.com:

“We are looking forward to building a lasting relationship with the soccer community in Columbia and Missouri as a whole.” Coach Golan said. “When we are playing at home, we want our opponents to feel that they are playing against the whole state of Missouri.”

• Jack Parker represented Mizzou at the US Amateur Championships and made it through the match play rounds.

Mizzou in the Pros (AKA: News I Don’t Particularly Like)

• Well, the Magic got annihilated by the Celtics by 37 points on Thursday evening, and Jeremiah Tilmon was the ONLY Magic player to not get into the game.
• In more bad news, the New York Giants, who had signed Cale Garrett to a reserve/future contract in January, waived him on Wednesday according to Saturday Down South’s Adam Spencer.
• And because when it rains, it pours… Aldon Smith was released from the Seattle Seahawks ahead of their first preseason game. I was really hoping that Smith, who is so incredibly talented, could stay out of trouble after having a great season last year, but he’s back without a home in the NFL and in trouble with the law, according to Saturday Down South’s Michael Hanick. Here’s some additional reporting from CBS Sports’ Patrik Walker.

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