Read the full transcript of Mizzou beat writer Eli Hoff's sports chat (2024)

Bring your Tigers football, basketball and recruiting questions, and talk to Eli Hoff in a live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday.

Transcript

Eli Hoff: Hi all, and welcome to today's Mizzou chat! I apologize for the delayed start — had a plumber over this morning that I had to attend to. We'll take your Mizzou questions and takes over the next couple of hours. Plenty of preseason camp things to talk about, and I was also able to take in a men's hoops practice last week if y'all have questions on that front too.

Fly Man:What transfer player will have the biggest impact in football?

Hoff:This is an interesting one, and I'd love to get thoughts from y'all on it too. I think I'd go with either Cayden Green or Marcus Bryant, two likely starters on the offensive line. Given the impact of having a high-end and healthy O-line last season, they're both going to be very important. That seems likely to lead to big impacts. There are also arguments for Toriano Pride Jr. as a starting cornerback, Darris Smith and Zion Young as edge rushers. And Marcus Carroll and Nate Noel will do plenty as the running backs. Still, I lean O-linemen given how foundational that will be.

bigron:what if anything is going on with the men's Bball team now? Are they allowed to have organized practices, etc?

Hoff:They're just about to wrap up summer practices. They're limited by NCAA rules in how many hours of on-court work they can do each week (I believe it's four in the summer), but those are organized practices, yes. When the team invited me out for one last week, it looked like what you'd expect – lots of drills around building chemistry on each end of the floor, some work on what they want from cutters in the offense and handling switches on defense. I didn't see any full-blown 5-on-5 but there was a lot of instruction from the various assistants as they went through drills.

Big Tortilla:Any idea why Mizzou bought out the Miami of Ohio game? Better yet, why did they schedule them for a road game to begin with? Also, with a road game at UMass I can’t figure out the advantages for Mizzou. I could understand if it was a Power 5 opponent.

Hoff:For those who haven't seen, Mizzou is no longer on Miami Ohio's schedule for 2025. The Tigers were supposed to play an away game there next year. I'll write about it once a couple other aspects of this are pinned down, but according to the contract between the teams the buyout was $750,000 for Missouri if it backed out of the game last year.

The reason for buying it out is the exact same reason why this year's game at UMass looks so weird. You've got a CFP contender playing a much smaller team at said smaller team's smaller stadium. The impacts of this also matter more going forward with revenue sharing. Every Power Four athletic department needs every bit of money it can get to cough up the $20+ million that will be required to be competitive going forward. A home game is a chance to bring money in. An away game isn't.

In the case of the Miami game, it was scheduled in April 2017, during Jim Sterk's tenure. It was a one-off game and not even a home-and-home, so I really don't know what the logic was.

Truman2:How would you rank Missouri's four non conference opponents in terms of upset chances? Assuming of course Mizzou is favored as expected when those three September games against Murray State, Buffalo and Boston College are played. Followed by the October 12 UMass game.

Hoff:Boston College seems like the most likely upset candidate. They're an ACC program, even if they're not a big one. Bill O'Brien, the former Patriots offensive coordinator and Texas head coach, is now BC's head coach. I don't know how much talent they have, but that seems like the type of coach who should be able to get results out of them.

I'd put Buffalo next. The second game of the year lacks the buzz of an opener. Maybe Mizzou thinks it can coast there. Then UMass since that game is on the road. Maybe playing in front of just 17,000 in Amherst, Massachusetts leads to a lull? Murray State is the least likely upset. You've got an FCS team at home to start the season. Anything but a dominant win would be a let-down.

Fly Man:Seems like many more defensive players get into games vs offense. Back up qb's, runs rarely get a chance for game experience. Is this a Drink philosophy or more of just how things work out?

Hoff:There are a few considerations here. Mizzou, like a lot of teams, rotates at a few positions on defense. There are 8 linemen who generally place across all four positions, trying to keep a freshness advantage over opposing O-lines. There tends to be some flux at safety as well, particularly with how many come into the game. So that's one element of it – there are 11 starters on defense but really more likely a 17ish player rotation. There isn't as much room for that on offense. Two running backs will probably get looks, maybe 6 receivers, maybe 3 TEs, maybe a swing lineman. But it's probably more like 14-15 offensive players who you're really going to lean on to a significant degree. I don't think that's necessarily a Drinkwitz thing.

How he handles young players this year will be interesting, though. There's not a competitive element with playing a backup QB like there was with Sam Horn in last year's season opener. But there would be value in seeing how Drew Pyne looks to have that for evaluating next year's QB competition. Getting Jamal Roberts or Tavorus Jones touches and experience could be valuable. There's more talent on this roster than at any other point in his tenure. Perhaps that's a spot of evolution. It might take this team dominating opponents more than it did last year to really be possible, though.

DS:Will MIZ football sell out the entire season before games begin?

Hoff:Well they'd certainly like to and will push to do that. The allotment of single-game tickets that went live this week for Oklahoma and Auburn (homecoming) sold out the same day. I'd imagine the opener sells out. It's a game like that Buffalo one that I don't know about... it just isn't as marquee and doesn't have the branding of an opener. But aside from that, I'd assume sellouts are on the table for every other game.

Matt L:Is No. 5 the best seed to get for this new CFP? You don’t get a bye, but most years you’ll get the best non P-4 conference champ at home (pretty close to a bye if you’re a legit title contender) and then you get the worst P-4 conference champ in the quarterfinals right? (As an aside, I only noticed this bc this is where I ended up in my first go at College Football 25. I’ve got Texas St. in the first round and Wake Forest in the quarters. I think the 8-9 matchup that will play the No. 1 in the quarters is Texas-Michigan.)

Hoff:I heard this thought on a podcast this week and it's hard to disagree with it. As you outline there, the 5-seed gets No. 12, which is very likely the Group of Five team, in a home playoff game. Probably the easiest opponent and you get to give your fanbase a home playoff game. Assuming that's a win, then yes, it would be the No. 4 seed, which does look like it'll be the "worst" Power Four conference champ. An upset there (which might not really be an upset — if the SEC/Big 10 runner-up is the 5 seed, they're probably a favorite at a neutral site vs. the Big12/ACC champ) puts you up against the 1 seed or whatever team knocked off the 1 seed in the semis. That's pretty decent.

Now, there's a lot of value in getting a bye and going straight to the quarterfinals, like the top four seeds will. But I'm not sure being the 4 seed is all that advantageous, if your first game is against a power-conference runner-up. Same for the 3-seed. Being the 1 seed would be nice — the bye, the 8/9 winner, then likely the 4/5 winner. I'm not sure that being the 5 seed is really a better path than being No. 1, but 5 is definitely a nice place to be.

And what the actual takeaway here might be is that the difference between No. 5 and No. 6 is quite steep in terms of what the bracket brings you. That probably comes down to splitting the difference between the Big Ten and SEC runner-ups. So expect that to be a massive storyline come late November/early December and more people catch on.

Evil Calvin:Is Horn done being a backup/ potential starter QB for Mizzou? Isn't he like 3rd or 4th on the depth chart?

Hoff:Because of his Tommy John surgery, he's not on the depth chart this year. If he wants to continue pursuing football, he'll theoretically be in competition with Drew Pyne and a potential transfer for next year. So he's still a potential starter, but the future of that position isn't super clear.

Questions:I understand you just saw drills but did any players or coaches impress you (or otherwise) at the MBB practice?

Hoff:Peyton Marshall (incoming freshman center) looked really good. His physicality seems like it'll be where it needs to be and he seemed confident. Josh Gray will be another prototypical big man. Jacob Crews' jumper is incredibly smooth. Tamar Bates looks as composed as last year. Nobody seemed to be struggling, which is good since it was a practice setting. Mark Mitchell happened to be absent the day I was there but I was told it's not an injury or concern — he's been there for the rest of the summer. Rob Summers seemed to be fitting in with the rest of the coaching staff, and it was great to see Dickey Nutt was in the facility.

JL_STL:Have the football coaches mentioned any players that have stood out thus far (knowing that there have only been 3 practices)?

Hoff:They haven't, but only because we haven't talked to them since practices started. Eli Drinkwitz is next slated to address the media on Saturday, so perhaps some names will emerge then.

And that's where we'll wrap things up today. Thanks for coming by. If our system prevented you from getting a question in today, you're always welcome to drop them in my inbox: ehoff@post-dispatch.com. I'll happily answer things there on chat days and outside of them as I can.

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