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Zook Heaps Praise on Missouri
Illinois and Coach Ron Zook apparently are not buying into the talk about the talent Missouri has lost from last season.
“(Sean) Weatherspoon, the linebacker, he’s as good as anybody we’ll see all year,” Zook said Tuesday morning during his weekly media call and conference. “Their nose tackle (Jaron Baston), the same thing.
“Just dominant players. Game-changing type players.”
“Offensively, (Blaine) Gabbert the quarterback . . . It’s kind of been a tradition for the new (Missouri) quarterback to kind of have his way with Illinois. We’ve talked quite a bit about that.
“But the thing I worry about with the quarterback, he’s a big, strong, physical guy. Runs better than you think. Our guys have got to be able to get him on the ground.
“Chase (Daniel) was a guy that wasn’t going to run unless he had to. This guy, he may take off at any moment. The big, mobile quarterbacks are the guys that concern you defensively.
“Their running back is back (Derrick Washington), and he was one of the better running backs we saw last year. Next to the guy at Ohio State and the guy at Iowa, he might have been the next best running back. A big, tough, strong guy.”
Heck, maybe Missouri should be favored?
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Vegas has them at 6.5 over/under win total. I would have taken the under prior to practices, etc. and now I would stay away. I think it's really hard (read: really, really hard) to find 8-9 wins for Missouri unless Gabbert is better than Chase (which I doubt, at least for this year).
Sounds like Zook is smarter than I thought. The closer we get to the season, the better I think this team is going to be.
Is Missouri going to have a better team this year than last years?
Sure Gabbert plays a HUGE roll in that question, but I think that he will live up to the hype. I seriously am beginning to believe that we may be better overall.
This is going to be a LONG week until gameday!
It happens every week. Believe it or not, coaches are typical respectful during Media Days when discussing the next opposing team.
As far as this team being better, it's too early to tell. They young'n's are being thrown directly into a bowl atmosphere, rivalry game. Pinkel dominates this series and hopefully the year to game plan will, again, prove powerful.
CFN projected Mizzou at 10-2 with one loss being this game. I could see that happening, but also I could see a 6-6 team if these young guys don't mature very quickly.