Bring your Tigers football, basketball and recruiting questions, and talk to Eli Hoff in a live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Transcript
Eli Ǵڴ:Hi all! Welcome to the bye week edition of the Mizzou chat. We'll take your questions and comments over the next couple of hours!
ܲ:I dunno, Eli. With 226 yards passing and 216 yards rushing, on paper, the offense looked fine. No turnovers, only 3 penalties etc. It seemed the Red Zone offense struggled and, of course, missed FGs. I guess my question is, did the Vandy defense throw some looks at Mizzou they weren't expecting?
Ǵڴ:I don't particularly think Vandy did anything special, other than be better than, say, Buffalo or Murray State's defenses. Vanderbilt's best defensive player only played the second half and OT while serving a targeting penalty suspension in the 1st half.
The red zone offense seems to be the major point of concern within the program — that's what Eli Drinkwitz was immediately worked up about, anyway. Last year, it was fine because Harrison Mevis was automatic from that range. A lot of field goal attempts still led to a decent number of points. If Blake Craig isn't automatic, at least this season, that math might change. The penalties were a spot of improvement. Nate Noel obviously had a terrific game. And if those splits you mentioned are enough to win a game, they're enough to win. It's about how much they can adapt and still be enough. If Texas A&M loads up the box to try to stop the rushing attack, can Cook and the passing game compensate? If they really don't want red zone possessions to hinge on Craig, can the playcalls find ways to convert? Those are still the lingering questions in my eyes.
bigron:What if anything is the Mizzou men's Bball team doing this time of the year? Have you been to any practices if they are having any?
Ǵڴ:It's a good question! Both the men's and women's teams had their first official practices this week. They'd had summer practices, but this is "training camp," so to speak, and the start of the ramp up to the season, which is in early November. I assume there's plenty of conditioning and scheme installation work going on at this point. I got to sit in for an entire practice during the summer, but we'll see if that's possible in the coming weeks. But I'll be honest from a job standpoint: October includes three away games football games, so logistics might make that difficult. We'll see!
Twister18:Baseball is quickly becoming a revenue generating sport in the SEC. Is there conversation about improving the baseball facilities? Maryville has a better complex.
Ǵڴ:Laird Veatch has told me and others that he sees facility upgrade needs around Mizzou beyond the north concourse project. It doesn't take a genius to spot that, either. If I had to guess, the tennis and soccer/outdoor track facilities are at the top of the list — they aren't even really usable for competitions (the soccer pitch is, but not the outdoor track). Then baseball's probably in the next tier. It depends if administration wants to invest in that as a sport. It seems like that macro strategy is trending toward football, football and more football. That's not to say that can't or won't evolve, but that's what I'm seeing at the moment.
DCG:I was going to mention last week something you noted in the pod with BenFred. The passing game issues aren't new. As you pointed out, starting with Kentucky last year, things regressed. Stoops modeled an umbrella coverage that other teams have adopted, and, in my opinion, the OC has not adapted/responded well. That mid-range passing game has to be a more prominent part of the offense, and it just seems like Moore has no idea how to use Norfleet. He's hardly been targeted, and when he has been, it's been short outs to the sideline. That dude should be running seams and stick routes and occupying LBs and safeties and making teams have to make choices as to what they will stop. (As an aside, why on earth did they have Norfleet put on so much weight? I think he's lost some quickness and agility, which might be part of the problem. Don't turn this guy into a blocking TE!)
Ǵڴ:With Norfleet specifically, there is an injury factor. He was still wearing a shoulder brace during the Vandy game. It could just be protective, but given what his usage has looked like, I'm not sure he's 100%. So that's a factor, but your point stands.
I think Mizzou has been leaning into that stuff a little more. When I asked Drinkwitz and Cook about why the latter was throwing the ball quicker after the snap this year, they both referenced more of an emphasis on the short passing game. I think that would explain why Cook's completion percentage is up slightly from last year while his air yards per throw are down. But for that to really look good on the tape or in the stats, it probably needs to be supplemented with the occasional deep shot working. You work the short/intermediate stuff, establish that, then get a burner or too from a defensive breakdown or timely playcall. Those opportunities have either been missed or not really there. Like I don't recall off the top of my head an opposing secondary collapsing the way Mizzou's has to give up lengthy scores. Luther Burden was all by himself for that OT TD against Vandy, but that was only 25 yards. I don't know how definitive of an answer that is, but I'm also not making several figures to figure out how to move the ball effectively.
:Sup Eli? I wanted to get this in for the longer form podcast mailbag yesterday but work got in the way. I'm curious if you could explore the "bull" and the "bear" case for Mizzou becoming a perennial playoff contender. I think we have a disadvantage in our recruiting pipeline in the state of Missouri compared to the Florida's, Georgia's, and California schools. Not only is a talent pool smaller, but I don't get the sense Mizzou is "Missouri's School" in the same way Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are in their states. I do think there's a bit of a chicken/egg situation wherein winning solves these problems. Interested in your take on all this
Ǵڴ:As I was reading your question, which is a good one, I was thinking that it might be a chicken and egg case, and then you gave that exact metaphor, so we're evidently on the same page. But that's not to say it can't be kickstarted by something. What got Mizzou into the position it's in right now was a combination of events, including Burden committing to Missouri. Nwaneri did so too before this wave of winning happened. Those are big and happened outside of any chicken and egg cycle.
There isn't as much talent in Missouri as there is in a state like Florida or Georgia, but there are enough top-end players from the St. Louis area in particular to make it notable. If Mizzou can consistently pull the top players from within a two-hour radius, that's a recipe for some success. But now it's the transfer portal and NIL and locker room culture that play such big roles in sustaining things too, and all of those can be finnicky. It's still too early in the NIL age to know whether success really is sustainable. Kirby Smart seems to be doing it at Georgia, obviously, but the financial side of all of this is changing so much.
But with 12 teams getting in the playoffs, it's far more possible to perennially be in the mix for that. If you assume the SEC will generally get 4 (give or take in a certain year, but on the whole/on average) teams in, then it seems more possible: That would "just" require being in the top tier of the conference year after year. And that's... easier said than done.
So I think the bottom line is that it's just difficult to pinpoint what it will take to be a perennial contender in this new age. It'll probably be more or less the same principles as before NIL and the portal and such, but I do wonder if that will ultimately shake things up. This is going to be fascinating to look at in five or so years.
ٰ:The other thing I don't understand about Mizzou's offense at the moment is why they aren't benefitting more from such a strong run game. I'm wondering how well/how much they have been using playaction.
Ǵڴ:Play action usage is close enough to what it was last year that I don't think there's been a real shift to use it more or less than last year, at least so far. The running game popped in a big way the last two games, with Nate Noel emerging as the outside zone guy, which fits this system excellently. Other teams will notice that, but I think Mizzou can have more confidence in that coming out of this bye, so I wonder if that changes the balance of plays. That's what I'm most interested to watch on the other side of this week — how Kirby Moore adapts this after four games that raised some questions.
John:No gold pants? Really? Tell me this was some sort of Nike screw up and not a conscious decision by Drink.
Ǵڴ:I guess not, based on what Drinkwitz said on the radio the other day. I know the stripes on the Nike pants that had been used in the past weren't holding up too great. Maybe something happened with the gold ones. I can confidently say that Missouri will not make or miss the playoff because it does or doesn't have gold pants to wear, though, so everyone can breathe easy there.
Todd H.:Good day to you Eli--hope all is well your way. Touching on what you said earlier about the Baseball program, well, that's truly a shame that the administration doesn't care--and hasn't for years now--about making drastically needed improvements to the stadium among other things MU Baseball clearly needs to do to be able to compete in this conference. Why not just drop this embarrassment of a program altogether if they simply don't care?
Ǵڴ:Hi Todd! Even if the university wanted to do that, it's not so simple — Title IX and the balance of sports comes into play. Investment priorities can come and go as needs and opportunities present themselves. Look at what happened with football: The Curators saw something they wanted to invest in and went full steam ahead very quickly toward doing so. The thinking has been that getting more revenue via the new north concourse, once it's completed, can help other programs and facilities. We'll see if that happens. If/when revenue sharing becomes a thing, a lot of financial models are going to change completely. And I don't think anyone really knows what that's going to look like yet. I know that's not your question, but I write that to say that this is all complicated and being figured out (as an industry) as it goes. And what that leads to at a school like Missouri is not every sports team getting the facilities it would have in a perfect world. And cutting sports is not a particularly attractive option anywhere in the country.
Nathan Thomas:I'm curious, did Eli and the coaches expect the passing game to improve heading into last week's game against Vandy? I have to think they've watched enough film to know what the issues have been and I would have thought things would be fixed by now. Is there reason to believe more film will reveal something else they hadn't looked at?
Ǵڴ:They expected it to improve going into the Buffalo game. Mizzou spent practice time between Murray State and Buffalo going back to Cook just throwing to wideouts against air to try to get the timing down. Drinkwitz had noticed some footwork things — I think he used the term "happy feet" — with Cook on deep throws at that point, too. But they're going to go back over everything this week. I know the staff in the past has had coordinators do "self-scouts" where they go through the process they would with an opponent, identifying tendencies and weaknesses but with their own tape. So if there's anything to diagnose, surely now it's being caught.
But with the deep passing in particular, that doesn't get a lot of game reps. It's not like you're throwing 30 20-yard bombs in a game to get that working. You might only get 3 or 4 ideal chances to put that to work. That's boiling a lot of work into just a few chances to show it off. So I could see the in-game stuff lagging behind what's happening behind the scenes. That's not to say that it's been up to standard at all, though. Hence why it's a priority for this program to correct.
It goes back to why I'm so intrigued for what the Texas A&M game will look like. How Mizzou handles a road environment will be part of it, but there's the element of how different the offense could/will look too. I don't think any overhauls will happen during one week off when the team is 4-0, but little tweaks could make big differences.
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