Not in terms of program ceiling.

In most years, Mizzou has a much better in-state pipeline to recruit from in KC and STL than Kentucky does with Louisville and Lexington.

Stoops' success has been recruiting heavily from Ohio.

Mizzou's floor as a program is still higher than Kentucky's long-term, similar to the ceiling.

Take Stoops away and replace him with a guy with a below average hire, Kentucky goes back to what it was like with Joker Phillips.

I'm not saying Drink is a great coach and is the next coming of Saban, far from it, but to act as if he's like Muschamp is silly.

Dude is 40, only been a HC for now 5 seasons (4 at Mizzou), and has made changes to his staff and gave up play-calling.

People bitched about Wilks. Wilks leaves. Hires Baker and has one of the best defenses in the country year 1.

People bitch about Drink calling plays. Hires an OC and gives up play-calling.

It's not like he's making the same mistakes and refusing to change. If you do that, that's how you become Jimbo Fisher.

There is one mistake he is not learning from and it’s the most important one, starting Brady Cook.

Yeah, and when you combine the above with a complete failure to recruit or develop an even average QB, the failure to keep the momentum in recruiting up, and having most of the talent he DID manage to bring in jump ship, it's pretty obvious why folks are starting to get sick of his shit.

But hey, apparently he plays SEC TYCOON: Booster edition relatively well and it's pretty darn tough to find success at a program like Mizzou so **** it, let's just keep him.

Last year he was forced to play Cook because Macon did not end up being who he thought was, Bazelak experiment didn’t work out, and Horn was a true freshman.
He also missed on transfer QBs.


This year, Horn has a year of development and brings in a 4* transfer from Miami and says it’s a competition.

Unless Garcia is better than Cook or Horn shows he’s ready, settling for inferior alternatives for an average college QB who has shown he’s admittedly average while also playing with a torn labrum and an atrocious OL would be stupid.

I think you're severely underestimating how hard it is to both develop, keep, and evaluate a QB. The only coaches who have shown they can develop good QBs consistently are Saban, Riley, Day, and Swinney.

Swinney had probably his worst starter in a decade the past 2 years and Saban has his weakest or most unsettled QB situation since either 2014 or 2015.

Kirby Smart chose Jake Fromm over Justin Fields and an incredibly athletically limited Stetson Bennett over whoever else he had.

I think Mark Stoops is a great coach. He hasn't a QB that's he recruited out of high school start Week 1 for him since 2016. Nor has he had a QB from HS that's he recruited from HS finish the season as a starter for him since 2015. He's relied on JUCO and Power 5 transfers at QB. It's hard as **** to get good QB play.

Regarding players jumping ship, wouldn't you do the same if you could get more playing time or money elsewhere, especially in the NIL/transfer portal era? That problem isn't unique to Mizzou.

A little bit, but only in the sense that I thought it was premature. And when it looked like we were hiring Skip Holz I was friggen livid.

But I do think he was the wrong coach stylistically. Both in terms of his approach to roster construction and his handling of media/fans/recruits. I think Odom has no real ceiling to speak of whereas Drink has some fundamental strengths that can REALLY make him a heck of an asset.

In the end, the HC will always make a difference in gathering resources. That's the public face of your program - you can't expect him to be a glowering old gym rat and get the boosters enthusiastic. Even Saban is actually charismatic as hell.

We moved to the SEC and got more resources than we would've in the B12, yes. But everything is relative - the guys we're competing against are getting that same amount. Now how do we get beyond that? Well, that's a slow burn and it's one I think Drink is making substantial strides in.

Also treating it like a given the resources will keep coming in. At a point the dude is going to have to prove he can actually provide results from these substantial investments or it's going to dry up. And sorry, I'm not seeing where that's going to come from given the state of the program and what's in the pipeline.

It's weird in that I think you can view Odom and Cuonzo to be the same kind of hire.

Odom was hired because I don't think boosters really wanted to spend $ to hire a coach and the messy situation he inherited. Ultimately, I think he reached his ceiling at Mizzou. I do think he should have been given 1 more season to show what we could do with his own guys in a full 4 years of recruiting, but the result would've likely been the same.

Cuonzo inherited an absolute dumpster fire from Anderson. He probably had a bit more upside than Odom, but largely brought in due to his STL recruiting ties and showing some possibility at being a second-weekend team. He never reached that ceiling and never really delivered on his recruiting ability aside from year 1 (which I'd argue was probably his best year coaching-wise).

Drink has potential to be more than Odom and is showing adjustments and changes, but he has to eventually deliver wins.

Dennis Gates is going to be a fantastic hire long-term due to his recruiting abilities and what he did year 1 was nothing short of phenomenal.

It's not a given that the investments will keep coming in, but if Drink is able to not alienate the boosters or fan-base to the point that Odom did, which I don't think he will, there's no reason not to think that the investments won't continue.

I do agree he does need to deliver results at some point and personally would move on from in 2024 if he doesn't hit 8 wins either this year or next, but Mizzou isn't Georgia, Florida, Alabama, etc. It takes time to develop and establish recruiting ties in football for most teams before seeing results.

I think Tennessee Year 2 under Heupel was an aberration. He inherited Hooker, and decided to bench him for Milton initially in 2021, then Hooker performed at an unsustainable rate of play with regard to his interception rate.

Similar with South Carolina. I think they improved under Beamer, no doubt, but it's hard not to when you go from starting a grad assistant at QB to a Power 5 transfer. You don't just go from getting curb stomped in Gainesville to a mediocre Florida team to dropping 63 the next week and then winning on the road at Clemson and can expect that to be the new norm in terms of performance. They'll probably finish 7-5.

I think that's completely fair.

I'll go back to what I said in the previous thread - right now the only 'miss' he has is Bazelak. And even then, he didn't recruit Bazelak (and frankly, I loved that kid; thought he was going to be great). And I guess Macon, but I think he knew more about Macon than we did. I saw him in the spring game and turned to my buddies and said "oh shit - this kid can't actually throw the football..."

I mean he just hasn't had better options than...meh. And the guys he tried to get in here through the transfer portal OVER Cook last year just didn't pan out.

I think we're jumping the gun in a BIG way on closing the book on Drink already. We've seen a lot of progress across the roster and the one thing to worry about is the QB position. But he CLEARLY recognizes the importance of it (just as Pinkel did and Odom did NOT). He's going to keep taking swings there and like MOST college programs, he'll have more misses than hits.

But it only takes one Lock. Or hell, even a Gabbert. And with a little patience I absolutely believe he can/will get that. And suddenly you have a pipeline you can start to build around a little stability at the position.

The 2 big transfer QBs I believe Mizzou was interested in that he missed out on were Jayden Daniels and J.T. Daniels. Jayden Daniels went to LSU while not being guaranteed to be the starter, but ended up being the #1. J.T. Daniels got a massive NIL deal at WVU, didn't do shit, and is now at Rice.

I do agree that the roster design and improvement is occurring or has been noticeable every where other than QB. And it's hard as ****, as I mentioned before, to get QB right. Especially now with the portal.

You can do far worse than Cook but your ceiling is limited.

Which is why I wouldn't give up him on yet as he's bringing in guys and improving the roster.

Not saying they beat LSU or Tennessee, but win 1 of those 2, mood changes a bit. Given the schedule, anything less than 6 wins would be a disappointment and 8 wins should lead to being content.

And Horn didn’t arrive on campus until VERY late.

How is Horn's elbow?

It's definitely an elbow

Is Mizzou going to bring in 2 5* and a 4 * recruit from in state? What's the chances we get all 3 or these studs from Missouri?

All of them? Low.

Hey enough of that you negative Nancy.

Anyone know how TC battles are going for MU starting QB?

Things are looking fairly good for Nwaneri and Wingo, but Mizzou can always happen.

Oh and it can happen in glorious fashion. Like where we don't get any of these 3 in state kids, but Eli can at least recruit well, so hopefully that doesn't happen.

Things are looking really good for Wingo, Nwaneri, and a few other big recruits.

But it doesn't matter, because that mother****er is going to start Brady Cook at QB and he's gonna start him until it's no longer possible to start him and we're gonna lose all of our other QBs to the portal.

Nwaneri announces tomorrow and so far today we've gotten crystal ball predictions from Steve Wiltfong, Director of Football Recruiting, and Allen Trieu both saying he's going to Mizzou. If he does commit here I think a big part of it has to do with MO's new NIL laws. It's huge!

Yep. He’s never taking him out.

Lost out on a St. Louis recruit to Ohio State today. St. Louis kids have some sort of hard on for Ohio State.

If those guys are predicting that it's huge and that's 1 hell of a get for you guys

From what I've seen, the job is Brady Cook's. Prepare for misery.

Ton of smoke around Nwaneri/Mizzou….got a great feeling he’s picking us. He and Wingo would be one helluva a recruiting 1,2 punch.

I’m not surprised McClellan picked OSU right now, was always trending that way. Mizzou made up a ton of ground though, I don’t think that one is dead.

When you consider the OU connections to him & LSN it's an impressive win for Mizzou.

Wingo looking good too so they say.

Now if he can just survive the season, keep the class intact, & keep his job...

If anyone wants a ticket I have a spare I can sell to Mizzou vs. Middle Tennessee on 9 September.

Would just have to resell/transfer it through ticketmaster.

Yep, it was always his no matter what. I don't trust Eli's decision making whatsoever. Also, Eli doesn't talk about how good he looks only how the guys rally around him. Like yeah no shit? You've pretty much said he's the starter from the beginning. This has never been an actual open competition. It's infuriating.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Your daily dose of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Mizzou?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Mizzou</a> quarterback&#39;s. During practice it seems like the depth chart is shaping out like this:<br><br>1. Cook<br>2. Horn<br>3. Garcia<br>4. Johnson<br><br>Check out reps from each player in the thread below ��<a href="https://twitter.com/KOMUsports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KOMUsports</a> <a href="https://t.co/uxnz8PAUD1">pic.twitter.com/uxnz8PAUD1</a></p>&mdash; Joshua Shuman (@joshua_shuman22) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshua_shuman22/status/1691156990196912128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 14, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

He's had multiple chances to fix it. Time to live or die with the dumbassery.

Let's make no mistake though. Cook is getting deals. There's no competition.

If the job is 100 percent Cook's, we won't hear any more about the "maybe play 2 QBs for the first few weeks" thing.

If it is not Cook's job, we will.

Time will tell. I think Drinkwitz is a little too obsessed with all the complicated (and, I would argue, minimally effective with a limited QB) eye candy stuff he does in his offense. And that helps Cook out.

Nwaweri commitment should be announced any old moment now.

Momentum is on Mizzou's side, but who knows?

It's worth noting that Cook had the best ball placement there. And the ball did seem to be snapping out of there better than it was last season. Garcia had clearly better raw arm strength but didn't seem as precise. Horn seemed to be a little underwhelming to me; didn't jump off the screen like I'd hoped.

Man, the Frosh (Johnson) spins a beautiful ball, though. That thing just looks different out of his hand. With his athleticism, that's gonna be a really interesting kid to keep an eye on. Can't imagine we'll see him this year but he looks to have electric raw talent.

Nwaneri committed to Mizzou.

#3 player in the nation; obviously a 5* recruit. I believe that's our 2nd highest rated commit in program history?

Good work, NIL guys!!!

If Cook is the best option, you play him, no?

Don't think the argument has ever been dont play the best player. Just that if the best you can land is Cook after multiple cracks at doing an upgrade holy **** what are you doing?

Yeah, that's part of the problem...

It's infuriating.

I don't know about that. It really depends on the situation if he were to throw out Horn or Garcia.

I couldn't tell you who the best player is, because I haven't gotten to see them play. Based on Brady's play last year I find it hard to believe not one of the other guys is better. He was awful. He had 14 TDs and 9 came in 3 games. He had 5 games without a passing TD and 5 with only 1. He couldn't even pad his stats against the shitty teams

201 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT against a 3-9 Louisiana Tech team
58.3 comp%/179 yds/0 TDs/1 INT/10 rushes/-1 rush yds against a shitty 5-7 Auburn team
220 yds/0 TDs/2 INTs/14 rushes/16 rush yds against a shitty 6-7 Florida team
211 yds/1 TD/1 INT/11 rushes/-1 rush yds against a shitty 5-7 Vanderbilt team
143 yds/0 TD/0 INT/8 rushes/17 rush yds against a mediocre 7-6 Kentucky team

Oh, but what about his legs!

Mother****er had a 4 game stretch that he had 39 rushing attempts and amassed a stellar 3 ****ing yards. 3 yds on 39 attempts.

That's really bad, but we get all of these excuses now so he's gonna get a clean slate because

He was hurt, sure he was.
His o line sucked, every shitty QB gets this excuse.
The play calling held him back!

I watched him miss multiple wide open deep balls and over throw receiver after receiver.

Sure, the guys might be all rah rah rah around him, but that's only because he's the starter and that's what teammates do.

Nothing about his play should warrant him getting a chance to start this year.

Yall just got the #1 recruit and people are bitching about Brady Cook

It's kinda like having 9 pro bowlers and Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn as your QB's.

Because if Brady Cook starts all season we're going to win 5-7 games and lose Luther Burden and probably multiple other high talent guys.

I'm not.

Those two are just miserable twats.

Yes, as if we're the only 2 complaining about the QB position. What's there to be excited about with Alex Smith Lite as QB?

Hoping for the best this year would love to win some games.

If Cook is truly your best option then that just says a lot about the complete failure of Drinkwitz to find a QB worth a damn in his time in Columbia. Don’t really care as much about getting a 5* talent unfortunately when your ceiling is capped with shit QB play year after year.

Just to be clear, it's impossible that Cook has continued to improve?

I'm not sure what an improved Brady Cook looks like, but I think he'll be better than he was last year.

I would imagine the OL being better than last year and not playing with a torn labrum should improve things.

I still don't think he's a good college QB, but he's average.

Average is pushing it. I'd put him below average.

I don't think he really looked good before the torn labrum,but the line and running game could stand to be better.

Who knows maybe this new OC is a QB whisperer and can get 2010 Matt Cassel out of him :shrug:

He was playing behind a dogshit OL with a RB who was from Truman St. getting consistent playing time.

Yes, he had help at WR, but he can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

I do think the supporting cast is an indictment on Drink.

I’m not saying he’s going to be Joe Burrow on his A game at LSU (far from it), but there’s no reason not to think that he can be similar to other college QBs that are athletically limited but make good decisions and don’t **** up.

Hey, it got Greg McElroy drafted...

I just wonder if college football still allows for that sort of player to have much success. Even Alabama isn't dragging guys like that along for the ride anymore (though I guess Georgia pretty much has for 2 seasons now).

Gabe DeArmond thinks we're gonna snipe Dre Kirkpatrick Jr away from Alabama now?

C'mon, Gabe - that seems ambitious...

This is a kid who grew up in Alabama. Who's pop was a legend at Alabama.

Then again, he's not THAT good a prospect by most services so maybe this is a strict playing time thing.

Stetson Bennett is as athletically limited, if not moreso, than all of Saban’s QBs at Alabama prior to Hurts.

I don’t think Bennett will amount to much in the NFL, and while he didn’t put up crazy numbers or anything at Georgia, he did exactly what Smart/Monken wanted him to do and earned the right to be a Heisman finalist despite what some people might think.

Bennett is freakin' terrible.

Oftentimes he was out there trying to play hero ball WHILE being limited. Put him under center for Mizzou last season and they win 4 games.

He was the worst of all worlds but because he'd pull a drive out of his ass after shooting himself in the foot for 3 quarters, he got a 'gamer' tag. He stinks.

I get what you're saying, but it takes a little more than just being a caretaker to win in the SEC IMO

Unless you have 5 stars allover your roster.

The weapons are there, he just needs to see to connect every once in awhile.

I was talking to someone in-the-know this morning, and he believed Nwaneri will have to go JUCO route...bummer

Better get Bill Self in here - he knows how to get kids eligible.

Because the "JUCO route" means this entire process as just masturbation. We got Sheldon Richardson back, but had to entirely re-recruit him as a JUCO transfer. We've lost others.

The JUCO route just means the kids gone and maaaaaybe we'll be able to get him back someday.

I've seen no indication of that or mention of that anywhere, but I'll check with a few folks who would know.

True, and one of the many reasons college athletics is dying. The schools that have the most success in the next decade may be the ones with the best attorneys and NIL bagmen. Let's hope he gets qualified.

I hadn't either...interested to see what you find out

Did he elaborate on why?

Just grades...he is a long-time educational admin in the district. It's up in the air of course, but improvements need to be made in the SR year. Maybe he has more motivation now that the rainbow has a pot of gold.

Comments like that are a good way to be a former long-time educational admin in the district, true or not.

If it's like any major school district I've ever been aware of, 'educational admin' is along the lines of 'assistant vice president' and there are probably about 2,700 of them...

Good luck finding the guy...

I don’t disagree and he benefited from the scheme and talent around him.

However, he still did what was asked of him(which wasn’t a lot) and rarely made a horrible mistake.

Saban’s teams at Alabama up until 2016 basically had a care taker at QB with 5 stars surrounding the QB.

I don’t think the weapons are there currently, or not at least a large enough arsenal to win against the best teams in the league, especially with Lovett leaving.

There are some nice pieces, but not a lot.

I'm pretty certain there is a log of who accesses a student's academic files, and when. Would be a pretty crappy way to get put on a plan or fired from one of the highest paying districts in the area just to scoop a story to Joe Chiefsplanet.

The pieces are there to have a good Offense if the QB can push the ball down the field.

To coast like a Bennett or random dartboard of Bama QB's? No.

I think your person is misinformed, or a Sooner fan with sour grapes.

Yeah. Cook consistently missed deep shots down the field last year to Burden and Lovett.

They're not good enough to overcome that.

That's Cooks biggest problem - the unwillingness to push the ball.

It's not even the physical limitations that killed the offense last year - it was that he was just tentative. Honestly, the only hope we really had most games was the occasional deep ball that he threw REALLY well. He just didn't throw them often.

I still liked him more than Kelly Bryant - who wouldn't throw the deep ball, intermediate ball OR underneath ball. He'd just stand there and lose.

Lord he was awful.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">What does it mean to be a Tiger?<br><br>Spoken by <a href="https://twitter.com/ChaseDaniel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ChaseDaniel</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MIZ?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MIZ</a> | ��️: <a href="https://t.co/lIKvkuVVxS">https://t.co/lIKvkuVVxS</a> <a href="https://t.co/lKpTtDGLcl">pic.twitter.com/lKpTtDGLcl</a></p>&mdash; Mizzou Football (@MizzouFootball) <a href="https://twitter.com/MizzouFootball/status/1691586806066905428?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

That year entirely was completely forgettable.

So apparently Williams Nwarneri wore Oklahoma gloves and cleats to a HS jamboree down in Tulsa tonight…said this afterwards….

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Williams Nwaneri on wearing Oklahoma gloves and cleats tonight in Tulsa: “I had show some love… They’re still recruiting me and I’m going to let the season play out, but I’m committed to Mizzou... Just having fun with it.” <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Sooners?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Sooners</a></p>&mdash; Summer of George (@GeorgeStoia) <a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeStoia/status/1692354508977029628?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 18, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

How long until we get Mizzou’d lol? *sigh*

Cook was named a captain tonight for those who want to off themselves before the season starts.