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: Good morning, all, and welcome to our first chat of 2025! Since we last talked, Missouri football ended its season with a Music City Bowl win. Mizzou men's basketball is prepping for its run through the SEC gauntlet. And there's plenty else going on in the college sports universe. Feel free to drop your questions and thoughts in here over the next couple of hours!
Bretto: Do you have any idea why St. Louis has not created a bowl game? We have "kind of an indoor stadium" in the downtown area and it would be an economic boon to the area,
Hoff: At this point in college football "history," it is probably too late to be launching any bowls. I suspect the bowl industry is more trying to hold on to what it has/had than create more. A Google search tells me there was some floating of playing a bowl game in St. Louis a decade ago, but it doesn't seem like that really got any traction. Given the state of the Dome and St. Louis as a baseball town, if it were me, I think I'd actually put the game in Busch Stadium versus inside. Call it the Cardinal Bowl and try to get Budweiser to be the sponsor, maybe. It would be hard to get a tie-in with a power conference now, though, and — no offense to these programs — I'm not sure how much a Group of Five matchup would bring to the city. Might be effort and money better spent trying to get Mizzou games there regularly, and even then that's a whole separate thing.
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Bretto: In the name of "Dan Devine" will Mizzou recruit some defensive backs who are NOT afraid to wrap their arms around the ball carrier and pull, push or, Heaven forbid, TACKLE HIM TO THE GROUND. How many times do we have to watch a D back just bump the running back or receiver with this shoulder and then watch the guy keep running?
Hoff: Or whiff. Tackling was an issue with the secondary this year, for sure, and it tended to produce some big runs and consequential plays. I can think of three big plays with missed tackles off the top of my head this year: the long rush given up to Texas A&M, the Sanders touchdown against South Carolina, and the long run given up to Iowa on Monday. I imagine that'll be coached up during spring ball.
Bretto: I read that a college team has offered a QB 6 million dollars to change teams. I also read that a High School QB was offered 1 million to change from Alabama to LSU. Where does this end?
Hoff: At some point, the spending has to level out. Or maybe not. I don't think anybody is really proceeding into this landscape with what an economist would deem "rational" thinking. In the short run, I'm watching for two things: When do players start getting paid more than coaches? And does the NFL's rookie contract values come into play?
Both are mostly at quarterback, since it's the most valuable position. For example: Patrick Mahomes is paid far more than Andy Reid, and that doesn't seem like a big deal to anyone. Yet Eli Drinkwitz gets paid a lot more than his players. Coaches are already starting to give back salaries to fund revenue sharing/compensation for players next year — not sure if Drinkwitz is doing that, but others are. When will those lines cross and the players make more?
This year, Caleb Williams — the top-selected rookie QB — is making about $9.8 million. There are 33 NFL quarterbacks making more than $6 million this year. When we talked about the hypothetical of it being more financially advantageous for some players to stay in college ranks vs. make the jump to pros, that's very much happening now. A lot of college players are making more than they'll be able to make at the start of their NFL careers.
Russ: Hey, Eli. I was watching the Texas/ASU game yesterday and wondered how close was Mizzou to getting Ryan Wingo?
Hoff: I don't cover recruiting beyond when kids commit so I won't pretend to have been deeply sourced or anything with Wingo. But I went into that day expecting him to pick Mizzou. I had a story ready to go and everything. I'd been told by Mizzou people they were very optimistic. Nobody put a percentage of how much of a lock it was or anything like that, but Missouri was at minimum fairly close if not very close. I suspect how close the Tigers were could be quantified in a dollar amount.
Palmetto State Fan: Good morning. Two items for you. One, did DJ Johnson coach the linebackers in the Music City Bowl. Two, it is past time to "Mike Leach" the current state of college football. Let's come clean and admit this is now a professional sport. Let's put Men's D-1 basketball in the same place. The players are getting paid, some millions of dollars. Head Coaches, DCs, and OCs are paid millions of dollars (indeed some are paid not to coach).. ADs are paid millions of dollars. Universities are getting paid millions of dollars. Time to end the charade. First step --- put the athletes under a legally binding contract that specifically lays out their duties and accountabilities as well as the university's. Let them hire an attorney./agent whenever they wish. Players may be cut from the squad, put on a "practice squad", made available via trade or waivers, and the like. Most athletes are in virtual classes anyway. It is almost irrelevant where the athlete attends school (if that is still part of the equation). The Cam Ward nonsense of exiting the team at halftime of a bowl game is "The U's" fault. Athlete should have been under contract.
Hoff: I'm actually not certain whether DJ Smith was coaching during the Music City Bowl, and here's why: His hire was announced by App State the morning of the game. I was on the sideline for almost all of pregame warm-ups and saw pretty much all of the Mizzou assistants — including the defensive guys sitting together — and did not see Smith, so I assumed he'd left Nashville to head to Boone, North Carolina. But then after the game, he posted a picture with players and the trophy, so he was definitely at the stadium. It's possible I just missed him on the field, or it's possible he watched from a suite/the stands and then came down for the celebrations.
I agree with you on wanting contracts for college sports. It would clean things up and make things more transparent. It's getting there — Ross Dellenger mentioned on his podcast recently that he heard about some NIL collectives working bowl-game clauses into their deals to incentivize players not to opt out. But to actually make the leap would require coaches to be OK with multi-year deals. I suspect they're sometimes OK with being able to suggest a player should leave in between seasons if it's not working out. It might not be in the best interest of a 17-year-old to sign a 3-year contract. They could wind up being better off transferring down or be stuck at a level that won't get the most out of them. That also gets into the "are college athletes employees" question that will be settled in court at some point soon-ish — though maybe not even this year.
As frustrating as the slow progress and speedy unraveling are, I think there are improvements taking place. You have coaches, like Drinkwitz, feeling more comfortable talking about it like it is, with words like "salary cap" and "free agency." NIL collectives are getting smarter with their contracts, and hopefully schools will do the same with revenue sharing. The model is producing more parity and giving players a chance to develop and star at bigger schools — look at how many of the Heisman vote-getters used the transfer portal to play their way onto a bigger stage. It just can be easy to lose sight of that with all the chaos.
c_good: You've probably answered this elsewhere, but what was with that Mizzou QB search? Drinkwitz had a four-star recruit already on the roster. Was he deemed to just not be the the guy, after the staff had gotten to know him and see him in practice? Or does every major-conference team shop around, no matter what, when in a moment of QB transition?
Hoff: I'll sum the options up pretty quickly, at risk of being a little harsh. Mizzou had, on the roster going into this offseason:
A backup who played serviceably in one game and terribly in another. He has plenty of experience but lacks the athleticism/rushing ability that has been a staple of the offense for the last few seasons.
A one-time backup who was a highly rated recruit out of high school but has thrown eight passes in three years while trying to play two sports and who is coming off a surgery that may limit him in spring practices. While he has undeniable arm talent, he has yet to show an ability to read defenses.
An incoming freshman who, while also highly rated, is coming off a leg injury — and is, well, a freshman in a league that uses a whole lot of 22, 23, 24 year old QBs.
Those are Drew Pyne, Sam Horn and Matt Zollers, in case you couldn't tell. There are pros to each and cons to each outlined there. They'll be in the competition for the job this year, I'm sure. But if you're Drinkwitz, you could not in good program-building faith hand the job to any of them. There just isn't enough to have complete confidence in them. So he went portal shopping and found some options he liked, and one (Pribula) who will enter as the favorite to get the job.
c_good: What are you liking in the CFP so far? I'm enjoying the DB play and some of the WRs who seem to have NFL role-playing potential. If the final is Penn St vs. Ohio St, that argues for the expanded field.
Hoff: This is a fun one. I think my three favorite things have been:
1. The home sites. This quarterfinal round should also be played at home stadiums. If you get one of the top 8 seeds, you should get a home game. That'll be way better than any bowl atmosphere. I'd probably argue for the semifinals to be home games, too, but I suspect that's asking for too much.
2. The trench play. The teams that have good lines (on either side of the ball) are winning, and I like that that's the case.
3. Cam Skattebo yesterday. For transparency's sake, I've liked his game a lot. I had him third on my Heisman ballot. So seeing the guts he put into that game against Texas was really something. Performances like that are what make this game special. There have been other great individual games, too — Jeremiah Smith at Ohio State, for one — but Skat will stand out after this CFP is done.
c_good: As a Duke alum, I was pleased to see reports that we're paying Tulane's QB $8M in NIL money. (Haven't checked the sourcing on that, and payments are opaque enough at the pro level, so who knows how precise/accurate that is.) Anyway, having lost former Texas recruit Maalik Murphy to the portal, it's nice to turn around and drop serious cash on a replacement who might be even better. More broadly, this makes me wonder about the NIL era. Duke isn't a great football school, but we've got a fan base that's rabidly committed to basketball ... and makes a boatload of money in finance and corporate law. (I'm an outlier, sadly.) The stadium isn't great; haven't seen the workout facilities. Anyway, will the NIL era see Yale put out a blockbuster team? Will Stanford get really good again, given all the Silicon Valley money in its alumni network? Boosters have been a big deal, but their influence was capped. NIL reminds me of what Citizens United did to political campaigning: a similar (but not identical) landscape of donors, but individuals with lots of cash became massively influential almost overnight, and the overall spending went way, way up.
Hoff: I'm not so sure about Yale, specifically, since the Ivy League views sports differently. But you do see schools with big donor bases splash cash and get results. I can't immediately find it, but The Athletic did a story on the SMU mega-donor who prompted their surge. Michigan has Larry Ellison bank-rolling a lot. Leveraging an entire wealthy base helps too, obviously. I've heard Mizzou people talking a lot about the importance of getting corporate entities in St. Louis and Kansas City bought (literally) in — that's the base that Mizzou can tap. It's something I'm going to ask around about more this offseason. But money is only getting more important in college sports, and people are attached to their alma maters. The connection between those two ideas fuels a whole lot.
EvilCalvin: Time to rescind all scholarships. No free schooling. No free housing. No free campus meals. They are all getting paid. Let them pay their own way. It's not like most are there for an education anyway. (good luck on their future when most don't get degrees and have no job).
Hoff: I get the cynicism, but I don't think that's grounded in reality. Mizzou had a graduation success rate (an NCAA metric) of 88%. That was 75% for football and 78% for men's basketball. The six-year graduation rate for the entire university (a slightly different metric than GSR) is less than 75%. When you factor in every sport, it's unfair to say than any given athlete has a lower chance of graduating than a non-athlete student. If you think they make enough to have to pay their own way, that's different. But I think you'd be surprised at how few would make enough to pay for tuition...
Mark: Pardon the sarcasm,but when these college kids get paid to play football,is there a requirement to actually attend class? I can remember when your GPA meant something to the coaches.
Hoff: Yes. The NCAA requires athletes to make progress toward graduation — basically, get 20% of the way there every year/remain on pace to finish in five years. There is also a GPA they have to maintain to be eligible. That might not be directly attending class, but they do have to be performing in school.
DCG: Hey, Eli: Late to the game here. I'm glad the chat's still open. I was stunned by the Kewan Lacy transfer. It seemed obvious he was going to be a top option next year and get plenty of carries. Is this a situation where he was looking for more money? With that, I'm guessing that teams are tampering all over the place and making offers to guys before the portal opens. Does the feckless NCAA have any intention of actually trying to police the transfer process?
Hoff: Yeah, that one was a surprise. He had a path to be the No. 2 guy if not more next year. I want to be clear in saying that nobody from Mizzou has accused Ole Miss of tampering with him, but look at the optics: He went from locked in with MU to signed with Ole Miss in less than a day. Compare that to how long high school recruitments take... and you see why those of us outside just assume that everyone is tampering to some degree. Heck, I saw a player post his film on Twitter the other day without entering the transfer portal but asking people to reach out with other opportunities.
Maybe under revenue sharing the NCAA tries to police things more, but (like many things in college sports) it's probably a Pandora's box situation. Hard to suddenly crack down when you're an entity that loses power every time it is summoned to a courtroom.
And on that rosy note, we're going to wrap up today's chat! I've got a podcast to record and a basketball story to write — and the Sugar Bowl kicks off in a couple hours. What a day. Thanks for coming by, and we'll chat again next week!
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