Since it’s the weekend and I don’t want to waste one of my softball wrap up pieces when the readership is not as high, so I’ll take this time to elaborate on a few Mizzou news and notes items.

As Eli Drinkwitz starts his third season at the helm of the Tigers, it’s important to remember, teams (and fans) in the mighty SEC don’t seem to stand for mediocre results; athletic departments seem to act swiftly when things aren’t trending upward. This is evidenced by the fact that six of the Southeastern Conference’s head coaches this season are entering only their first or second seasons. So, the time to improve is now, and Drink knows this. He’s brought in quite the recruiting class, and is doing all he can to improve fan support.

“We’ve spent two years really trying to win and build at the same time,” Drinkwitz told Auerbach for her 2022 State of the Program piece. “We go to back-to-back bowl games and have the recruiting classes we have. I think the future is bright, but the future needs to be now.”

Drinkwitz told Nicole that he’s confident that his current roster, which he says “has more depth than at any other point in his tenure, particularly at key spots along the defensive line and in the secondary — and that his program’s development is moving right at the pace he hoped it would be.”

But, he told her, the record is not the only way he judges growth, and a three-game stretch against Auburn, Georgia and Florida shouldn’t be the only way anyone evaluates the coming season.

“We’re in a scoreboard-based business, and it’s all about wins and losses,” he said. “But it also takes time to build, and there’s not instant transformation from what we were to what we want to be like. It’s not a quick fix. The team that just won the national championship took five years of recruiting a top-five class in order to get there, and they have unlimited resources.

Anyway, there’s A LOT more.. but it’s for subscribers, so you’ll have to check it out on your own. Subscribe to The Athletic!

In other news, I sat in on a meeting on Friday about a possible collaboration between the J School and the athletic department that was super cool, and we were talking about student athletes, while they definitely know how to use social media, they might not know not necessarily know how to use it in a way that shows off their personal brand.

I was thinking about this when I saw Aidan Shaw’s newest post and his Twitter profile. Just an incoming freshman and he’s already got an email link for business inquiries, the link to his OpenDorse profile set up, and he’s working on merch, which will be sold on his personal website, theaidanshaw.com.

Y’all, I’m SOOOOO EXCITED to see him play. Also, I need to start learning the faces of these other players because as I was looking at the background of these pics, I realized I don’t recognize everyone yet!

On to the links!

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Friday/Saturday at Rock M:

• Josh identified what Mizzou Fans should express from Dennis Gates in game one.
• Matt’s newest piece looked at how Isiaih Mosley’s transfer to Mizzou is the best kind of outlier.

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More Links:

Hoops

Mizzou has been working hard to make in-roads with the Chicago area, per PowerMizzou’s Mitchell Forde. He recently offered his first Chi Town prospect, class of 2023’s Cameron Christie.

Track & Field

• Georgi Nachev finishes his season with First Team All-American honors in both indoor and outdoor triple jump. He placed fourth in the indoor in Birmingham earlier this year, and was fifth in the national championships this weekend in Eugene.

Roberto Vilches placed eighth place in the men’s high jump final, also earning first team All-America, to go along with his first-team honors in indoor, where he earlier placed fifth.

On the ladies’ side, Arianna Fisher placed 11th and Mara Häusler 15th in the triple jump, earning second-team All-American honors. This was the second consecutive year Häusler has earned second-team All-American honors.

Read about it at the Missourian in posts from Jack Knowlton here and here.

Women’s Golf

• Per the Missourian’s Calum McAndrew, The Tigers have found their new golf coach, and welcome in Caroline Westrup to take over for Coach Coop, who now works in development. She comes to CoMo from Georgia, where she was an assistant coach. While with the Dawgs, she helped them make it to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championships. More info can be found at MUTigers.com.

Other Sports Stuff

• Congrats to both incoming Tiger Cierra Harrison as well as Tiger Soccer player Milena Fischer!

• Dave Matter (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) has been sharing his picks for athletes of the year, as well as teams of the year. Check it out.
• Mizzou Football welcomed an awesome guest to practice late in the week!

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