Bring your Tigers football, basketball and recruiting questions, and talk to Eli Hoff in a live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Transcript
Eli ±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýMorning, all. Thanks for coming by. I'm freshly back from SEC media days in Dallas (which is still going today, but it's not super interesting if the team you're covering isn't at the podium on a given day). We can chat about everything down there, the preseason and whatever else is on your minds over the next couple of hours.
Russ:Â Good morning, Eli. A couple of questions. What's your take on Drink's "toned down" appearance at the SEC Media days? Some of the analysts at the meeting seemed to think that Drink believes he is really loaded going into the season. What was the feedback you heard from other media about their expectations for Mizzou.
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±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýIt was largely what I expected from him. He'll still slip in the occasional zinger, but he's generally not trying to go viral or display any particular degree of antics, these days. There could be a lot of theories for why he's opting for that. Gabe DeArmond over at PowerMizzou shared one the other day that I actually find quite interesting. Some of the more "adventurous" Drinkwitz moments came when his team wasn't as good as it has been last year and this year. Could it be that he was doing some of that to pull attention away from players who weren't having barnstorming seasons and to himself, and that now that they're performing at this high of a level, he's trying to direct the spotlight more toward them? I can see some merit to that theory, and again, it's just an overly deep theory as to how he approaches these media things.
This was my first SEC media days, so I won't pretend to know what the chatter about Mizzou was like at last year's iteration or any previous ones, but the consensus from what I heard from other media was that the perception of the Tigers is vastly different from last year. It seems like some people are viewing Mizzou in a way they never have before. The expanded playoff is definitely part of that. Missouri has had good teams before, and very good teams too — even in the CFP era, with those seasons right after joining the SEC. But never has that been enough for a spot in the playoff until, potentially, this season. People are noticing how favorable Mizzou's schedule is too. I think other media actually have a view of Mizzou that's rather in-line with how MU fans see things. Maybe some talking heads are underrating the Tigers because they need to have a take and yadda yadda yadda, but I don't get the sense that anybody's really sleeping on Missouri right now.
Big Tortilla: Do you have a way to early pick on who will be the eventually SEC champion? Won’t hold you accountable to that pick.
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýI have Texas and Georgia finishing first and second in the regular season and thus in the SEC Championship Game for my predicted order of finish ballot that I'm submitting today. I'd give Georgia the advantage in the title game, though I do think the Longhorns win when those teams meet in Austin on Oct. 19.
Mizzou doesn't play either of them, which makes a path to the championship game tough. There could easily be three teams that go 7-1 in SEC play, leading to title game invites being determined by tiebreakers that have yet to be determined themselves. The bottom line is that Missouri would likely have to beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa to make it to the championship game, picking up a head-to-head tiebreaker over the Tide and getting a crack at an 8-0 SEC record.
°Õ°ù²¹±¹¾±²õ:ÌýDo you know if Mizzou football expects to sell out its early season cupcake games?
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýExpects? Maybe not. Hopes to, certainly. And there's a good chance of it. The opener moving up should help, even if it is a weeknight. I'd guess everything from Boston College onward is a sellout. It's Murray St and Buffalo that feel like question marks. But I don't believe single-game tickets are really even on the market yet, so it's a little early to judge too much.
´Ú°ù²¹²Ô°ì:ÌýDo you think any of the 5 star recruits will crack the starting line-up this year?
Hoff:Â In football? Williams Nwaneri is the only five-star recruit there. It's tough for a freshman lineman to get snaps just because of the physicality of the SEC. I think preseason camp will be the best indicator of how he stacks up there. I could see his season winding up like Brett Norfleet's, actually. Get a few looks early, work on escalating the physicality and have a stable role by the end of it.
In basketball, Annor Boateng is the most-heralded prospect. He could wind up starting alongside someone like Tamar Bates as a wing. Peyton Marshall and Trent Burns, the centers, will also have good looks at starting roles just because of the lack of depth there. If Josh Gray misses a game, one of them is starting (unless Mizzou goes small-ball with the starting lineup).
²Ï³Ü±ð²õ³Ù¾±´Ç²Ô²õ:ÌýWhat did you think generally of your first SEC Media Days? Any of the other coaches catch your attention for either good or not so good reasons?
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýHonestly, it was pretty boring. I personally enjoyed catching up with some other Mizzou alumni who I haven't seen in a while and meeting other writers, but the work part is quite dull. It's sitting in a hotel ballroom, listening to various coaches try to run out the clock while people ask them inane questions that may or may not be relevant to their team or anybody else in the room. It's not straightforward to be able to ask a question — the moderator didn't call on a single Mizzou beat reporter during Drinkwitz's session, even though we all had our hands up and were in the middle of the room.
I found Kalen DeBoer's time at the podium pretty interesting and wrote about that yesterday.
But most of the coaches were trying to be boring and defaulted to a lot of coach-speak. I don't think any of them said anything groundbreaking or that people who cover them regularly didn't already know. That's kind of the point of media days, I guess. The most valuable part, for me and what y'all will read as the preseason goes, was a private session with Mizzou's representatives that a select group of reporters were invited to. But even that wasn't really any different from what we do regularly in Columbia.
Voting is open to media until 5 p.m. or so today, and the predicted order will come out tomorrow. I think Georgia and Texas will be the top two. Alabama probably goes third, with Ole Miss in the mix. I could see Mizzou slotting in at 5th.Â
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