There’s a group you’ll find that remains fairly faithful in Pinkel, but there’s also a very vocal “FIRE PINKLE!!! WE NEED A FULLBACK!!! HE CAN’T BEAT UT/OU!!! GOLD PANTS!!!” crowd. For the most part, I haven’t had much of a bone to pick with him for playcalling this year. It seems like most of the vitriol (and I don’t mean to imply that there’s any more vitriol than any other team at any other time) has been against new OC Dave Yost.

I think the drop in production is primarily attributable to youth. It’s a freakin’ young team that’s been prone to making all kinds of young mistakes, especially drops. That is compounded with the fact that Missouri played its toughest stretch of the season — Nebraska, Oklahoma State, and Texas — with a quarterback who couldn’t walk around campus for three weeks without a walking boot. Gabbert was rolled up by Suh early in the NU game, and he really wasn’t himself for three weeks.

This was compounded with the fact that the Missouri running game was a shell of itself for the first half of the season. For whatever reason, the MU running game never got off the ground early on. In 2006-2008 (the Daniel years), MU wasn’t a great running team, but it was good enough that if you sold out to stop the pass, MU had no issues handing the ball off and exploiting the matchup in the box (see: Cotton Bowl). It’s taken awhile for that running game to get back on track.

…after the, um, pictures of yours that were taken this summer? :-)

In fact, Spoon may now save your soul upon Judgment Day.

Overall, Mizzou’s pass defense hasn’t been as horrible as the numbers would suggest. A lot of that can be credited to new DC Dave Steckel.

But Kansas is the type of team that can do exactly what Baylor did. Missouri plays mostly a bend but don’t break system, in which our DBs very frequently line up at least 7 yards off the line of scrimmage. If I’m an opponent, I’m throwing the ball out to the receivers quickly, almost like an extended handoff, and letting them take their free 4-5 yards every time. Chip away at Mizzou underneath, and then at some point, there will be that one breakdown over top that will open up. Kendall Wright was that guy for Baylor, and Briscoe could well be that guy for Kansas. It’s really a matter of patience.

On top of that, Mizzou isn’t great on broken plays when QBs can scramble around. We don’t have to rehash 2008 to know that this could clearly be an advantage for one Mr. Reesing. Mizzou’s DEs are incredibly quick, which means they’re also incredibly prone to getting caught too far upfield. If Reesing steps up and flushes out, the Kerry Meier Improv Show™ can start once again.

I should also add, though, that you better protect your quarterback. Missouri’s D-Line has played extremely well over the last few games, and Aldon Smith is a freshman All-American at DE and should be up for All-Big 12 consideration. In addition, MU hasn’t blitzed much, but has been pretty effective when doing so.

The.
Fuck?

I’m glad I’m not the only one who has thought that.

It’s 2009, for crying out loud.

Yeah, probably.

The Illinois win was great until Week 3, when it became clear that Illinois was probably the worst BCS conference team in college football.

But I say Missouree, damn it. The Missouruh is a river, Missouree is a state.

Honestly, I probably would have let the Paige thing go after a few years, but you could easily call me a progressive as far as trash talk goes. I’d much rather talk about Jocques Crawford’s 2000-yard promise.

It’s funny, because I really think Missouri is a football school that happens to have fans that are more knowledgeable in basketball than in football. I think it’s a football school by desire and a basketball school by knowledge, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

get the facts straight before you make a joke, though, only makes you look stupid

is that you?

Another classy Mizzou fan.

Did you attend the University of Missouri? If so, did you graduate? What is your degree in?

I’d like to know for a theory I’m working on.

Nice try though.

Can you teach me how to call people names and incite rage on the internet? You could even call it Trolling 101! As soon as you get this project up and running, please let me know. I’m sooo interested in learning how to do what you do.

I’m also wondering about your in-depth knowledge of Kerry Meier’s sexual preference. I don’t believe the media delves into those kinds of things very often so I’m wondering how you came across this fountain of knowledge. Do share!

Lastly, I realize the commenting platform here on SBN is a bit tricky but because you managed to sign up for an account, I hope to help you take the next step to commenting and enjoying the threads! I admit a touch of disappointment that you have yet to learn this, but if you can accomplish the difficult task of reading you might notice under each comment is a button that says “REPLY”. When someone directly addresses a comment by you, it’ll appear below your comment and off-set a bit. In order to maintain the image of an upstanding internetter as you’re clearly attempting, you should learn to use aforementioned REPLY button. You wouldn’t want to look stupid, would you?!

Sincerely,
Me.

I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and assume that a college graduate from a fine school like Missouri would only resort to calling people a “homo” because they’re so angry about not being able to fine gainful employment? Unless, of course, you’re lying and you don’t have what it takes to get a bachelor’s degree.

Would you rather work for a company with $1.24 billion in capitalization serving a “customer base” of around 20,000, or a company with $1 billion in capitalization serving a “customer base” of over 30,000?

BTW, did Kenneth Lay teach any of your classes? Maybe that’s your problem.

I honestly didn’t think he came from RMN anyway…we got linked by Tigerboard today, I figured we’d catch a little bit of that business.

RMN and RCT have maintained a pretty solid relationship. We don’t troll you, you don’t troll us. We get along while hating each other. It’s the softer side of the internet.

Boom!

I think we’ve got a shot. Despite the struggles this year…the only team we couldn’t really compete with talent wise was Texas. It’s more a mental deal with this group. If they can find it in them to put things together, Kansas can win.

At the same time, you are correct…there is a lot to give Missouri fans confidence right now.