Via FromKCtoCoMO

Bengals TE coach Jon Hayes to Chase Coffman during HBO's Hard Knocks last night

I know you didn't do this at Missouri, but you're gonna have to learn to play man's football

OH NO HE DIDN'T!

. . .

*coughs* Sorry about that. I get what he's saying, I really do. Chase wasn't asked to block at Mizzou because that's just not the offense Christensen ran and all he's asking for Chase to do is block. Holy crap though, what a way to say it, though. I'm offended on two levels of fandom, one as a Mizzou fan in that he's implying that the Tigers do not play "man's football," and two as a Steelers fan because the Bengals haven't played "man's football" since the 80s. 2005 was a fluke, everybody knows it. Oh snap.

Maybe he's just trying to get into Chase's head but I'm going to go ahead and go with a "fuck that guy" stance on this issue. Which is pretty easy to do because I hate the Bengals and they're a shitty team anyway. Face it Bengals, you're just a copy of the Browns except you suck even harder.

My apologies for a little impromptu vacation time. Sleezy showed up (with family) on my doorstep a week early and wanted to go to Dollywood. Me being a little kid inside of course said 'yes'. Then we drank. A lot.

Either way, I'm back. So...what happened since Monday?

Not a whole helluva lot. What you need to know:

-Zavier Gooden is a little banged up.
-Our friend, Marvin Foster, is also beat to hell.
-Sounds like Ashton Glaser has taken over that 3rd QB spot. The Glaser/Dalton battle will be insteresting for the next few years.
-Speaking of young QBs, Blaine Gabbert is looking solid. Kid's been throwing TD passes left and right according to our boy, Dave Matter. God I'm excited.
-Ty Phillips is ineligible, but you knew that. Sounds like some freakish stuff happened on his HS curriculum. According to Matter, here's whats up with our guys that didn't get in this year:

Defensive lineman Ty Phillips, of East St. Louis, Ill., did not qualify academically and is expected to spend the upcoming semester taking night classes to raise his core GPA. He is not expected to enroll at a junior college to play football. Best-case scenario, I’m told, is Phillips will be eligible to re-sign with Missouri in December and enroll for the 2010 winter semester. Other schools will be able to recruit him also. Phillips originally attended Belleville East, Ill., High School, but when he transferred to East St. Louis, some of his courses from the first school were not counted with his transcript from the second school. (Redshirt freshman defensive end Aldon Smith had a similar issue when he transferred from an Iowa high school to Raytown.)

As for fellow freshman offensive tackle Chris Freeman, Missouri is still waiting on word from the NCAA Eligibility Center. The NCAA works on its own schedule with these matters, so there’s no telling when the case will be settled. Essentially, MU is taking a "hope for the best, expect the worst" perspective. Neither player's situation, though, came by surprise for the MU staff.

And as for Sheldon Richardson, the defensive lineman from St. Louis, he is enrolled at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Calif., and the plan is in place for him to redshirt this upcoming season, play at COS in 2010 and enroll at Missouri in 2011 with three years to play three seasons. Some have wondered why Richardson enrolled at a California school when there are plenty in Kansas to attend, but I’m told it was the family’s decision in light of his older brother’s experience. Shaun Richardson failed to qualify after signing with Purdue, attended Joliet, Ill., Junior College but then came up short in qualifying at Purdue the second time around. Richardson and the COS head coach have both pledged that Richardson will eventually be a Tiger, but the MU coaches know they’re nowhere near done recruiting the prized prospect.

So, now you know.

Also be sure to check out this story on Ziggy Hood from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

So far, the first-round pick is playing as well as could be expected, said 12-year veteran Aaron Smith, arguably one of the top 3-4 defensive ends in the NFL

"He's progressed faster than anybody I've ever seen do it before," Smith said. "He's still got a ways to go, but as far as a rookie in camp, he's progressed much faster than I've ever seen."

Smith said Hood has done so well through the first half of training camp that he expects the former Missouri star to make an impact this season even though the Steelers are deep at defensive end.

"He's going to be a really good player for a really long time," Smith said. "He gets it. He's a smart kid and works hard."

When told of the praise Smith lavished on him, the 6-foot-3, 300-pound Hood said, "It makes you feel good, but it also makes you want to work harder because he does a lot. And for him to say that, you've got to keep that going every day and can't just rely on what he said and lay back for the rest of the season."

Gary Pinkel, Aug. 8 from Dave Matter on Vimeo.

Via stlskyline

Slam via Yahoo! Sports is reporting that former Missouri Tiger Linas Kleiza will be signing a two-year, $12.2 million dollar deal with the Greek club Olympiakos.

Good for Kleiza for getting paid but I'm really going to miss watching him on a regular basis. His contract will supposedly have a player option after the first year so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that he'll be making it back to this side of the pond. Dude showed a lot of promise last year and keeps on improving.

I can only hope that when I inevitably knock up some lovely lady, my child will become this.

How great does it feel to once again be able to constantly hit the refresh button on Dave Matter’s blog in hopes of a fresh practice report? In case you’ve been living in a cave for the last eight months this season’s theme is all about the Tigers reproving themselves. A lot of “OK” players graduated from last year’s team and now some unproven guys have to step up if the Tigers are going to Threepeat as Big 12 North champs. Yep, lots of position battles and storylines to follow between now and September 5.

There’s the obvious things everyone is watching for: How is Blaine Gabbert going to handle the pressures of being QB1? What kind of numbers will D-Wash put up with opposing defenses gameplanning more heavily on stopping him? Will the secondary be able to stop Kerry Meier at least once?

But there’s also a lot of less talked about keys that will play a crucial role in whether or not the Tigers are able to continue their recent string of successful seasons. Here’s three less obvious storylines/position battles that I’m going to be watching very closely from now until the Tigers kickoff against the Illini.

1. How will Terrell Resonno and Dominique Hamilton do in attempting to fill Ziggy Hood’s shoes?

Dave Matter tackled this subject in Saturday’s Tribune. There’s a lot of hype about the group of D-ends that Coach Pinkel has this year (the Smith Bro’s and Chuck Norris Coulter). He’s already said they might be the best set he’s ever had and Mike DeArmond is apparently calling them a three-headed monster. I don’t think there’s any doubt that all three of those guys have what it takes to be major difference makers. There’s a good chance we see at least one of them getting drafted pretty highly in the NFL Draft some day. (I think it’s going to be Aldon.)

But I think Ziggy Hood might have been one of the most underappreciated stars Mizzou has had in a long time. He didn’t make a lot of highlights and his statistics weren’t overly impressive. But you constantly heard the coaches heaping praise on Ziggy for the work he did in a Tiger uniform. You always read about Ziggy being double-teamed by offensive linemen for entire games. I never played competitive football and consequently am not much of an X’s and O’s guy, but it seems like Ziggy was one of those very rare football players that was capable of making the guys around him better without many fans noticing it. Kind of like college football’s version of Shane Battier.

It’s not fair to ask Resonno or Hamilton to do what Ziggy did with the limited experience that they have. But they have to at least make offenses notice them. They can’t be pushovers. They have to do enough to allow the DE’s and Jaron Baston do their thing. Major question mark at this position.

2. What kind of production will we see out of Danario Alexander and Jared Perry?

This is a fairly obvious key but I might actually be more concerned about Mizzou’s two established receivers than I am about the untested freshmen and sophomores. I don’t think there’s any doubt that there’s talent in the underclassmen receiving corps. I’ve heard multiple people that have been able to watch a decent amount of Mizzou practices since last year rave about Wes Kemp’s ability. Everyone forgets that Jerell Jackson was one of the breakout stars in last year’s summer camp. Rolandis Woodland is a guy who also came to the program with some decent hype.

But I think we all know that we’re not going to have another Jeremy Maclin in that group. Best case we get one or two of these guys to play like Jared Perry circa 2006. I’d say expect at least one of these guys to put up numbers in between what Tommy Saunders put up as a sophomore/junior and what JP put up as a freshman/junior.

But we’ve never seen if JP and Super Danario are capable of consistently getting open when they’re the go-to guys. They’ve always had All-American caliber players like T-Ruck, Coffman and J-Mac lining up right across from them. Neither one has really ever been more than a fourth option. We’ve seen flashes of brilliance from both of them (particularly Danario) but we’ve also seen them completely disappear for weeks at a time. They don’t have to be J-Mac and Chase Coffman. But I wouldn’t mind a couple of Will Franklin clones.

3. How will the special teams unit perform?

It’s possible that the past few years the Tigers have had their most solid special teams units maybe ever with J-Mac returning kicks and Jeff Wolfert simply not missing field goals.

Wolfert’s another guy Mizzou fans probably took for granted despite his many accolades. Great kickers are so rare at the college level. Remember the Adam Crossett experience? Remember that feeling that we had to score a touchdown even if we were inside the 10-yardline just to guarantee that we got some points on the drive? Not fun. And I’ve seen much worse kickers than Crossett. Tanner Mills may or may not be a solid Big 12 kicker. But I’m going out on a limb and saying he’s not going to be the most accurate kicker in NCAA history. I’ll be more than happy if we can just count on him from 40-yards and in.

And don’t forget Maclin. He’s hardly a player that was underappreciated during his tenure as a Tiger but we probably have overlooked how many drives he set up without ever touching the ball. With Maclin returning kicks the Tigers were almost guaranteed to start a drive no further than their own 35. I wonder how many Mizzou touchdown drives over the last two years would have ended in punts or field goals had the other team not intentionally booted the kickoff out of bounds.

Dave Matter has pegged Jerrell Jackson as the early favorite to return kicks. And again, he might be good at it. He might even return a kick or two to the house. But I’m just guessing he’s not going to have quite the impact on special teams that No. 9 had.

Wow, Nebraska over kU and Mizzou? I guess Mizzou is 34th.