Originally Posted by duncan_idaho (Post 9380538)

Losing Donavohn Jones today was disappointing. I thought he had a shot to be an excellent safety. The JUCO safety, Duron Singleton, is likely to commit tomorrow and is the best JUCO S in the country, according to JUCO Junction.

I am worried about the secondary recruiting, though I think Aarion Penton is going to be a good CB.

Trenches... losing Jake Campos hurts. Clay Rhodes is going to be really good, I think. Gill should be serviceable. Sounds like they have an OK shot to land the former Florida OL commit from Georgia (friends with Printz).

DL... if Augusta and Antar Thompson can qualify, that's a strong pairing in the middle in this class. Losing DiMariya Mixon hurts a lot, because he already is a bigger guy and can be a great big DE or penetrating DT.

If they close, best-case scenario....

RB Ezekiel Elliott
S Duron Singleton
OL Josh Outlaw

This can be an ACCEPTABLE class (one that's good enough to help you stay in the 7-8 win range). The opportunity was there for this to be a foundation class that helped establish something better than that, and missing on it hurts a lot.

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho (Post 9378356)

Missouri's biggest problem is that it is carrying a bunch of guys who are average-at-best recruiters who don't seem to work all that hard.

Andy Hill is a stud. Works his a$$ off in KC and also helps out the other guys a lot, as well as being the primary JUCO guy and a secondary rural MO guy.

Cornell Ford (St. Louis) and Josh Henson are OK. Both have good reps, but I wouldn't call either a spectacular recruiter. Ford has a lot of big wins, but he also has lost some St. Louis guys by not recruiting hard from the get-go (Case in point: EE. They thought they had some cushion with him because of his roots and focused elsewhere early. Ooops)

Beyond that?

Brian Smith and Bruce Walker are below-average to awful reruiters. Nice, boring guys that are never in on more than 2-3 kids a year. They're also average at best coaches. Real minuses on this staff, in my opinion.

It looks like Pinkel's nephew might fall in that category as well.

The new WR coach, Pat Washington, I think it's too early to tell. He has a decent background, but who knows?

Also, "fun" tidbit I heard recently... they liked a former player for the vacant WR job. He was ready to leave his previous job... turned it down to accept a job with the TSF making like $25k a year. Encouraging... :doh!:

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho (Post 9380538)

Losing Donavohn Jones today was disappointing. I thought he had a shot to be an excellent safety. The JUCO safety, Duron Singleton, is likely to commit tomorrow and is the best JUCO S in the country, according to JUCO Junction.

I am worried about the secondary recruiting, though I think Aarion Penton is going to be a good CB.

Trenches... losing Jake Campos hurts. Clay Rhodes is going to be really good, I think. Gill should be serviceable. Sounds like they have an OK shot to land the former Florida OL commit from Georgia (friends with Printz).

DL... if Augusta and Antar Thompson can qualify, that's a strong pairing in the middle in this class. Losing DiMariya Mixon hurts a lot, because he already is a bigger guy and can be a great big DE or penetrating DT.

If they close, best-case scenario....

RB Ezekiel Elliott
S Duron Singleton
OL Josh Outlaw

This can be an ACCEPTABLE class (one that's good enough to help you stay in the 7-8 win range). The opportunity was there for this to be a foundation class that helped establish something better than that, and missing on it hurts a lot.

Originally Posted by OmahaChief (Post 9380600)

Acceptable is a bit of a stretch for me. We got no bump with the SEC level kids from entering that league. The season killed us and having Pinkel as a HC seems to be sucking the life out of this team. Just my opinion. I think kids have heard he could be a lame duck and it does not help that he has reverted a bit back to the ahole Gary we used to know.

I hate to use this word but there appears to be no swag around our Football team at all.

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho (Post 9380631)

When I say "ACCEPTABLE" I mean, barely, skin-of-your-teeth, acceptable. As in, not a program killer or one that moves your program backwards. It's also not a program that moves you forward unless you get really lucky with several guys (look at the 2006 class - think it ended up ranking No. 41 overall but re-ranks would have placed it in the top 10).

It's a shame, really, that Pinkel is not willing to be really cutthroat with guys like Brian Jones and Bruce Walker and Dave Christensen. His stubborn loyalty to them prevented him from taking his program to the next level.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut (Post 9380639)

Not a Christensen fan?

What do you know about him that I don't? I really view him as the architect of the offense that did so much to move Mizzou to the cusp of...well not quite greatness, but really damn goodness.

I wouldn't have seen loyalty to him as being damaging at all, let alone as damaging as loyalty to guys like Eberflous and Yost.

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins (Post 9380672)

Missouri's success was built upon finding diamonds in the rough. Alexander, Weatherspoon, Moore, and Egnew were all 2* players, for example. When this staff's ability to find those diamonds dried up, so did our ability to replace our NFL quality talent.

A competent staff would have used those diamonds to move up and start selecting players that are consensus solid recruits. That's what Patterson and Peterson have done at TCU and Boise. It's what Gonzaga did to build their BB program. Instead, Pinkel's staff's recruiting has made half-assed plays at targets they were never going to get and let a number of quality players slip through their grasp.

This team is going to be in atrocious shape in about three years. Early 90s bad.

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins (Post 9380672)

Missouri's success was built upon finding diamonds in the rough. Alexander, Weatherspoon, Moore, and Egnew were all 2* players, for example. When this staff's ability to find those diamonds dried up, so did our ability to replace our NFL quality talent.

A competent staff would have used those diamonds to move up and start selecting players that are consensus solid recruits. That's what Patterson and Peterson have done at TCU and Boise. It's what Gonzaga did to build their BB program. Instead, Pinkel's staff's recruiting has made half-assed plays at targets they were never going to get and let a number of quality players slip through their grasp.

This team is going to be in atrocious shape in about three years. Early 90s bad.

Originally Posted by Bo's Pelini (Post 9380697)

This is a great thread because some of you Mizzou guys really know your shit when it comes to recruiting.

How hard did Mizzou go after Maliek Collins? I really like that kids explosiveness.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut (Post 9380690)

And Mizzou is still the only football school in a pretty good sized state (there isn't a more populous state in the country with only 1 'flagship' university).