Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins
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.
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I think part of the lack of true "diamonds" in recent years is that Missouri's name is given a lot of respect by the scouting agencies. So guys are pretty much automatic 3-stars when they have a Missouri offer.
A guy like EJ Gaines would have been a two-star without a Missouri offer, for example.
Lack of cutthroat recruiters on staff definitely kept them bogged in the same recruiting plan:
1) Hope Missouri has good talent and get as many MO players as possible
2) Mine secondary recruiting areas based on connections and targeting second-tier kids that don't get immediate offers from the big schools in those regions.
I don't think TCU is a very good example. This year is the first year they've been ranked higher than Mizzou in recruiting rankings, and it's not a lead that is guaranteed to hold up (for example: IF Missouri flips EE OR lands Outlaw + Singleton). Other than that, they've been staring up at Mizzou in Rivals rankings.
Boise is also not a great example. That team is stuck in the 50s and has been for years.
But that's beside the point. I agree that they didn't do a good job of expanding the recruiting base. Part of that is that guys like Walker, Jones, Eberfllus, etc. just aren't good at recruiting