December 2007 blog archives
Posted on
Dec. 31, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2008 Cotton Bowl
Bill Cocos has no use for Monday morning quarterbacks who second-guess every play a football coach calls. “You know why he called that play?” Cocos says. “Because he thought it was going to work.”
That kind of reasonable perspective comes with nearly 60 years of being a loyal fan. Cocos (pictured at right) is more than a Mizzou fan, though; he’s a fixture. The 1952 graduate and former member and president of the UM System Board of Curators hasn’t missed a home game since 1948, and he has missed just two away games since 1969. He’s here in Dallas for the Cotton Bowl, naturally.
Here’s what else comes with 60 years of loyalty: insider access. Cocos often has appeared in postgame locker rooms — only after wins, of course — but one such experience stands out.
With about a minute left in the Mizzou-Kansas game on Nov. 24 at Arrowhead Stadium, officials came to Cocos’ seat to invite him to the locker room. The bad news: He missed Lorenzo Williams’ game-sealing safety sack of Todd Reesing. The good news: He got to celebrate with the team in the locker room and even hold the Big 12 North trophy after sharing a hug with Coach Gary Pinkel.
The moment was undeniably special, a pinnacle in a true fan’s career. But it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been there through the highest highs and lowest lows.
“If you follow a team, you have to follow them win, lose or draw,” Cocos says, employing a truism he has used in the many media profiles about him. “That special moment I had in Kansas City wouldn’t have been possible if we had been up all the time.”
Photo by Rob Hill
Posted on
Dec. 31, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2008 Cotton Bowl
Icons of Texas mixed with symbols of Mizzou at the New Year’s parade in downtown Dallas. There were Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and Kilgore Rangerettes, and then there were Missouri cheerleaders and Golden Girls. Marching Mizzou followed a high school band playing the theme from the TV show Dallas. NFL legend Emmitt Smith was the grand marshal, but MU Chancellor Brady Deaton and wife Anne actually got more cheers (at least from the black-and-gold factions).
The Dallas-Mizzou mix makes sense. There are 18 players on the football team from the state of Texas. Likewise, it’s a big alumni base (more than 3,500 in the Dallas area), and the admissions office recruits here for new students. The connection was more pronounced today, though, with the Big MO drum banging against the Dallas skyline.
Photos by Rob Hill
Above, Marching Mizzou takes part in the New Year’s parade in downtown Dallas on Dec. 31. Below, the parade also featured icons of Texas football, including the Cowboys cheerleaders.
Posted on
Dec. 31, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2008 Cotton Bowl
You might think there’s a long, storied history between Mizzou and Arkansas. For one thing, the states of Missouri and Arkansas share a border. For another, they played just four years ago in the Independence Bowl.
Actually, Mizzou and Arkansas have played each other only four times in football history. This first time was in 1906, when Missouri won. Then Arkansas won in 1944. Then Mizzou won in 1963. Then Arkansas won at that 2003 bowl game. So the series is tied at 2-2, and you could look at this year’s Cotton Bowl as a rubber match that’s a long-time coming.
Here are some other historical facts and stats:
- Mizzou last played in the Cotton Bowl in 1946, where the team lost to Texas in a game that saw 950 yards in total offense. That was Mizzou’s only Cotton Bowl appearance.
- Arkansas is no stranger to Dallas, with a 3-6-1 record at the bowl and one national championship victory in the 1965 game.
- Assuming Arkansas’ Darren McFadden is eligible, he and Mizzou’s Chase Daniel will make this the seventh time multiple Heisman Award finalists have played in the Cotton Bowl. The first time was a 1949 game featuring SMU’s Doak Walker and Oregon’s Norm Van Brocklin.
- Mizzou holds a 5-2 record in bowl games against SEC opponents.
- Arkansas is 4-2 against the Big 12 in postseason games.
- The Cotton Bowl itself has been around for 71 years, since oilman J. Curtis Sanford promoted the first game himself in 1937 in Fair Park Stadium.
- Many football greats have graced this bowl, from Doak Walker in the early days to Troy Aikman, Joe Montana, Jim Brown, Roger Staubach and many, many more.
- The Cotton Bowl has featured a match-up of the SEC vs. the Big 12 — arguably the nation’s strongest football conferences — since 1998.
The Cotton Bowl also featured one of the most bizarre plays in college football history, when 1954 Alabama player Tommy Lewis jumped off of the bench and onto the field to tackle Rice’s Dicky Maegle, who appeared to be running for a touchdown. Here’s hoping Mizzou and Arkansas players show a little more restraint.
Posted on
Dec. 31, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2008 Cotton Bowl
They’re coming by land. They’re coming by air. They’d probably come by sea, too, if Dallas were a port city.
They — meaning the team, the fans, the family, the alumni, the cheer squads, the band and more — know the trip to the Cotton Bowl is worth it.
“It’s a long bus drive, but that’s OK,” says Suzy Thompson, cheer coach and mascot coordinator. Her cheer squad and two Truman mascots rode the 580-mile trip Saturday with Marching Mizzou and the Golden Girls. “It’s sort of a reward for them being out all year in the elements and everything.”
The “reward” mentality applies to everyone. For the players, a bowl game means a chance to break from the usual routine of in-season road games and have some fun — eating hundreds of pounds of meat at Lawry’s Beef Bowl, mingling with family and fans, and just soaking in the postseason atmosphere. For Chase Daniel and his fellow Tigers from Texas, it also means coming home and getting to practice at famed Texas Stadium, home of the Cowboys (and a place Daniel has played before, back in high school).
For fans, a bowl game offers one last football-based adventure. They get to spot players and chat with Coach Gary Pinkel in the lobby of the Hilton Anatole, the team and alumni hotel. They get to don the black and gold and toss a football with their kids in that same fancy lobby. They get to revel in the spirit at pep rallies and other events (see photos below).
There are other rewards from a season like 2007, though. Pinkel has talked about his warm reception while recruiting, and the same applies to cheer squads and the band. Thompson says she’s getting inquiries about cheerleader tryouts for next year, and those don’t even take place until spring. Likewise, Marching Mizzou director Michael Knight says interest in the band has spiked.
“Everyone’s looking to the future,” Thompson says, “thinking that it’s going to be this way for a while.”
Photos by Rob Hill
Top right, fan David Deihl of Trimble, Mo., hoists daughter Delaney for a better view at the Mizzou Spirit Rally at the Hilton Anatole on Sunday. Above and below, Truman and cheerleaders fire up the crowd. The two Trumans who made the trip appreciate the cool weather, says mascot coordinator Suzy Thompson: “It’s warm in that suit.”
Posted on
Dec. 30, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2008 Cotton Bowl
With one bale of cotton, you can make 215 pairs of blue jeans, 2,104 pairs of boxer shorts, 3,085 diapers, 313,600 $100 bills and much, much more.
So says the National Cotton Council, but cotton researchers at Mizzou’s Delta Center have their own numbers: In southeast Missouri, cotton is second only to soybeans as the most valuable crop — with an average value of more than $180 million from 2002 to 2005. Delta Center researchers have developed six new cotton varieties.
Jennifer Faddis of the MU News Bureau has much more information about how cotton isn’t just for football.
With all the attention on the Tigers and the Cotton Bowl, here’s another noteworthy development: Mizzou Tigers for Tigers, a group dedicated to helping endangered tigers, is competing against the Auburn Tigers and the Clemson Tigers to see which school can raise the most money for the conservation cause. Mizzou fans and alumni can help.
Posted on
Dec. 30, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2008 Cotton Bowl
He’s a loyal Tiger. He’s our man. He’s not going anywhere.
That was the general idea about Gary Pinkel before the holidays, but now it’s more than an idea. It’s a signature on the dotted line.
Mizzou announced a new five-year contract for Pinkel (pictured at right) on Sunday, Dec. 23, no doubt making for a merrier Christmas for the coach. Including base pay and other compensation (for things such as football camps, apparel and broadcast shows), his guaranteed yearly compensation jumped from $1.3 million to $1.85 million. In the process, Pinkel went from being the seventh-highest-paid coach in the Big 12 to the third, behind only Texas’ Mack Brown and Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops. His staff also receives an increase, to be divided at his discretion.
What a difference seven seasons make, especially capped with one like 2007. Pinkel — noticeably in pretty happy spirits these days — talks about how different things were for him when he first came to the university.
“One of the things when I took over this job that was a little bit overwhelming was the apathy,” Pinkel said in the week before his contract announcement, “the negativity by media, by fans. You know, you get beat up so much that you just don’t have a very positive fan-base. We had to overcome that. In fact, we had to ignore it.”
Ignorance wasn’t bliss, though. Early on, when he was selling his program on recruiting trips, he was met with apathy, skepticism and worse. This year, in the time he spent recruiting between the Big 12 Championship and the team’s Cotton Bowl practices, he was still selling the program. But now people were buying.
Fans are buying, too. Home attendance averaged more than 60,000 for the first time since 1981. Mizzou’s official ticket allotment for the Cotton Bowl sold out within hours, and all bowl tickets sold out within a day.
A big season and bigger money don’t mean the coach is content, though. His new and returning players in February will get a speech about how they have to be in the title hunt in November every year — and play at a high enough level to capture what they’re hunting.
“I’m not implying in any way that we have arrived, but certainly there’s great pride and enthusiasm for Mizzou football now,” Pinkel said. “We finally did some things that people said Missouri can’t ever do.”
Photo by Shane Epping
Posted on
Dec. 29, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2008 Cotton Bowl
Welcome to Mizzou Wire’s Live Wire Blog. For the next few days, we’ll be covering the Cotton Bowl — the last hurrah in a historic season for Tiger football.
So just how historic has it been? Though often repeated, the brags and “first-ever” facts are impressive enough to list again here.
Mizzou won 11 games for the first time in program history, with only two losses (both coming against BCS No. 4 Oklahoma). To truly grasp the magnitude of that fact, consider this one: Mizzou hadn’t won nine games in a season since 1969 and has reached that mark or higher only four times.
Going into the Cotton Bowl, Mizzou ranks as BCS No. 6 and AP No. 7. After a win over rival Kansas (then BCS No. 2) on Nov. 24 at Arrowhead Stadium, Mizzou sat atop national rankings at No. 1 for the first time since 1960.
Despite being left out of the BCS bowl picture, Mizzou beat two BCS bowl teams, Kansas and Illinois. The Tigers are the only team to do so this season.
Mizzou won its first-ever Big 12 North divisional title and made its first trip to the Big 12 Championship game.
The list goes on.
Now, Mizzou prepares to take on the AP No. 25 Arkansas Razorbacks in the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic at 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 1 in Dallas. It’s the first New Year’s Day bowl for the Tigers since 1970, and it pits two Heisman candidates against each other: Mizzou’s Chase Daniel and Arkansas’ Darren McFadden.
Can the Tigers add another highlight to the list — and increase their win column to a staggering 12 in the process?
Follow the celebration and the game here. You can check in for new information or subscribe to the Live Wire Blog feed to keep up with the action.
Photo by Shane Epping
Posted on
Dec. 28, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2008 Cotton Bowl
It’s four days and counting until the Mizzou Tigers take on the Arkansas Razorbacks in the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic on Jan. 1 in Dallas. The team left for Dallas Wednesday, and various alumni groups, Marching Mizzou, cheer squads and fans will be leaving in the days to come.
Mizzou Wire will be blogging from the Cotton Bowl beginning Sunday, Dec. 30. Check back here for complete Cotton Bowl coverage, or subscribe to the Live Wire Blog feed to keep up with the action.
In the meantime, the Mizzou Alumni Association has information on watch parties and fan events. Get ready for the 11-2 Tigers’ first New Year’s Day bowl since 1970.
Photos by Shane Epping
Tight end Martin Rucker extends a hug to friend Gayle Johnson (left) while Carrie Funk, grandmother of punter Adam Crossett, enjoys the fun.
MU fan Brenda Bolfing, who has attended every home and away game this season, holds a sign at the team send-off.
Posted on
Dec. 21, 2007 by Chris Blose
Happy holidays to everyone from the staff at Mizzou Wire. Here are some things to note for the coming week.
In case you missed it among all the football hoopla, men’s basketball is off to a solid start. Mike Anderson and his 8-3 Tigers take on Illinois at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 22, in St. Louis in the annual Braggin’ Rights game. It’s the 27th official year for this border rivalry.
If you are in Columbia and want to keep showing some love to the football team, you can meet at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 26 to send them off to Dallas. Park on west side of Memorial Stadium and use the pedestrian bridge to meet at the Mizzou Athletic Training Complex.
Speaking of Dallas, we’ll be blogging again from the Cotton Bowl. Check back Sunday, Dec. 30 for the start of our reports, photos and highlights from Mizzou’s first New Year’s bowl since 1970.
If you want to relive the year at Mizzou, including sports, research, the arts and more, check out Mizzou Wire’s year-end story.
Photo by Shane Epping
Posted on
Dec. 14, 2007 by Chris Blose
Question: What do Mizzou and a post-apocalyptic vampire movie starring Will Smith have in common? Answer: Richard Matheson.
Matheson, a 1949 J-School graduate, wrote the book I Am Legend, published in 1954. Fifty-three years later, it’s a blockbuster movie starring one of Hollywood’s biggest names as the last man on earth.
I had the pleasure of writing a feature story on Matheson for MIZZOU magazine in 2003 (a scanned version is available). This meant I got to watch a lot of TV and movies (Matheson wrote for The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, among other shows) and read several of his books (I Am Legend among them).
Here’s a little bit about the man and his work:
- Matheson hated the script for an earlier I Am Legend adaptation so much that he invented his pseudonym, Logan Swanson, so he could distance himself from the finished product while still earning residuals. Here’s what Matheson said about Swanson: “He’s had some very poor stuff with his name on it.”
- The first time Matheson met George Romero, director of Night of the Living Dead, Romero threw his hands in the air and said, as a defense, “I didn’t make any money off of it.” That’s because Romero admitted that he had borrowed the basic plot ideas from I Am Legend. He’s not the only one.
- There was an X-Files character named Richard Matheson in his honor.
- Do you remember that classic, iconic Twilight Zone episode in which William Shatner sees a gremlin trying to tear up the plane on which he is flying? That was Matheson’s, too.
Posted on
Dec. 6, 2007 by Chris Blose
Mizzou quarterback Chase Daniel is headed to New York for the Heisman Trophy presentation. He was invited to attend the announcement along with Tim Tebow (Florida quarterback), Darren McFadden (Arkansas runningback) and Colt Brennan (Hawaii quarterback). The ceremony is Nov. 8 and will air on ESPN at 7 p.m. (Central).
It’s the first time in history a Mizzou player has been invited to the announcement. Other Tigers have made a run at the Heisman before: Paul Christman finished in the top five in voting in 1939 and 1940, and Danny LaRose finished in the top 10 in 1960.
Daniel also contends for the Davey O’Brien Award tonight at the College Football Awards show on ESPN at 6:30 p.m. (Central).
Photo by Shane Epping
Posted on
Dec. 5, 2007 by Chris Blose
We’ve recovered from the trip to San Antonio, so it’s back to business as usual. For those of you who joined us for our recent sports coverage, welcome. At Mizzou Wire and the Live Wire Blog, we cover a little bit of everything at the university, including research and student activities.
With that in mind, here are links to a couple of videos about what’s happening on campus:
Happy viewing.
Posted on
Dec. 2, 2007 by Chris Blose
Mizzou accepted a bid from the Cotton Bowl today. The Tigers will play against the Arkansas Razorbacks on Jan. 1 in Dallas. The Mizzou football site has details.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
There are two ways of looking at it: Mizzou didn’t look like Mizzou tonight, or Oklahoma looked exactly like Oklahoma. Actually, both are true.
Up until tonight, the Tigers had scored more than 30 points in every game this season. Tonight they scored 17. Several times when they pushed downfield, Oklahoma pushed them backward. Mizzou had to settle for three field goals and only one touchdown on four trips into the red zone. Oklahoma scored five touchdowns and one field goal on six red-zone trips.
In the end, Mizzou played unlike itself and walked away from the dream of a Big 12 Championship and a national title. Oklahoma played like a championship team and walked out with yet another title.
“We didn’t play up to our potential,” quarterback Chase Daniel said in the post-game press conference, where Pinkel put his hand on his quarterback’s back in a subtle gesture that says everything about this team’s coach-player bond. “We didn’t play like we wanted to. We didn’t play like we practiced all week.”
It is a rare game indeed when Daniel doesn’t throw for a single touchdown. In fact, OU quarterback Sam Bradford had two touchdown passes to overtake Daniel’s total number for the season.
“They did all the things it takes to win in a big game,” Pinkel said of the Sooners, “and they deserve credit for that.”
The team and Mizzou fans won’t be able to think about it like this now, while the sting is fresh, but the season remains a historic milestone: the first time playing for the Big 12 title, the first time winning 11 games, the first time doing so many other things.
But there still will be a bowl game (announced tomorrow), and there still will be a storybook season to build on, even if the story didn’t end like it was supposed to.
“We’ll get over this and learn from it and be a better football team like we’ve done in the past,” Pinkel said. “You learn from these things, and hopefully next time we’re in one of these kinds of games, we’ll play better.”
Photo by Rob Hill
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Josh Nichols
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Oklahoma has beaten Mizzou and ended the Tigers’ Big 12 run and national title hopes. Check back here for postgame coverage.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Oklahoma pushed 65 yards down the field and finished with a 4-yard Sam Bradford pass to Joe Finley. It’s an 18-point game, and time grows short (10:33 left).
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Much like the first half, the second got off to a slow start. Both teams came up short on their first drives, then Oklahoma took its second drive 80 yards topped by a 4-yard touchdown run by Allen Patrick. Then Chase Daniel threw his first interception of the game, and Oklahoma capitalized with another touchdown.
Again, things were beginning to seem a bit grim for the black and gold, and again Mizzou came back with a drive down the field and into the red zone. Two plays for losses later, though, the third quarter closed with Mizzou facing a third-and-long must-score situation. OU’s up 28-14
Update: Mizzou failed to convert on third down and ended the drive with another Jeff Wolfert field goal. OU 28, MU 17.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Through the season, Mizzou was seven for 12 in scoring on its first possession after halftime. Mizzou’s opponents were three for 12.
Both of those percentages went down in this game. One possession Oklahoma, one possession Missouri, no scores so far.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
See highlight photos from a relatively highlight-free first half below:
Photos by Rob Hill
Chase Daniel escapes the grasp of an Oklahoma defender.
Tony Temple rushed nine times in the first half for 26 yards.
Oklahoma defenders prevent Mizzou rusher Jimmy Jackson from getting into the end zone.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Mizzou fans had been mostly quiet in the first half — and not just because Oklahoma fans outnumber them — up until the tying points with 19 second left on the clock. Possibly it’s because the show they’re used to seeing has been a bit slower than usual.
Before this game, Chase Daniel and OU’s Sam Bradford had 33 and 32 touchdown passes, respectively. At the half, that number has increased by zero (both Oklahoma touchdowns came on runs by Chris Brown).
Some more stats from the first half:
- Mizzou has 16 first downs to Oklahoma’s seven. But both of Oklahoma’s red-zone scoring chances have resulted in touchdowns, and Mizzou has settled for field goals on two of three tries. (The good news: Kicker Jeff Wolfert remains perfect in Big 12 play.)
- MIzzou has 192 yards of total offense to Oklahoma’s 167.
- Neither team has a turnover, but Oklahoma continues piling up penalty yards. Oklahoma has nine penalties for 78 yards, but Mizzou has just one penalty for 10 yards.
Despite the relatively slow pace of the first half, Mizzou’s last-minute score to tie things up means that after the half, we’ve got a game.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
After a slow start, Mizzou ties it up right before the half with an 84-yard drive capped by a 4-yard touchdown run by Chase Daniel and a two-point conversion reverse pass from Jeremy Maclin to Martin Rucker. Things might have been looking a little grim going into the half otherwise. Now it’s tied 14-14.
Stay tuned for some halftime stats and photos.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Mizzou looked a bit more like itself its first drive of the second quarter — up until it got to the 9-yard line. Chase Daniel connected twice to Tommy Saunders for 21 yards total. Daniel tucked his head and ran multiple times, including once for 19 yards. In the end, though, the Tigers failed to get into the end zone three times and had to settle for an 18-yard field goal from Wolfert.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Mizzou leads 3-0 at the end of the first. After two failed drives, Mizzou got on the board first with Jeff Wolfert’s field goal. Now Oklahoma is threatening at the start of the second quarter on the Mizzou 4-yard line.
Two high-powered offenses have had slow starts in the first quarter. The other story of the first quarter is penalties, particularly for Oklahoma. OU has 53 yards on penalties, and Mizzou has 10.
Update: The Sooners get on the board to start the second quarter with a 3-yard TD run by Chris Brown. 7-3 Oklahoma.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Mizzou scores first with a 29-yard field goal from Jeff Wolfert, his 88th straight successful kick in Big 12 play.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Up until this game, Mizzou had scored a touchdown six of 12 times on its opening drive. Not so this time.
Now we’ll see what Oklahoma can do after a punt. On the season, Mizzou’s opponent has scored on the opening drive only once, at Colorado.
Update: Not much. Oklahoma’s on to punt, too. Both teams looked shaky on their first possessions.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
The clock just ticked under 20 minutes until kickoff, and Marching Mizzou is on the field. There’s plenty of black and gold here, and the Mizzou fans are plenty loud, but the red may outnumber the black and gold.
Fun fact for the moment: We’re about 450 miles from Norman, Okla., and 857 miles from Columbia. Is proximity a factor? Either way, it looks like a lot of Mizzou fans made the trip. And now we have our first official “M-I-Z, Z-O-U” of the night.
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said former Tiger defensive guard and linebacker Bob Luther today. Luther, along with his brother and nephew, came to see if the team can do something it hasn’t done since he played in 1969: win a conference championship.
The Luthers and other Mizzou alumni packed the San Antonio Convention Center for a tailgate/rally sponsored by the alumni association. There was music, there was food, and there was a lot of speculation about tonight’s game.
Brock Hessing told stories of his playing days under Dan Devine in the late 1950s. He recounted the locker room scene after a particularly bad loss to Oklahoma:
“We sat there the biggest part of an hour. Our uniforms had dried completely while we sat there in silence. Well, he came in and said, ‘To you seniors, I promise you that in two years when we come back to Norman, we will beat Oklahoma, and we will dedicate the game to you.’ Exactly the way he promised it, it played out … I think Gary Pinkel and Chase and the whole team are going to do the same thing for all alumni at the University of Missouri tonight.”
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
Gary Pinkel often refers to Chase Daniel as a “battlefield commander” who has several “weapons” at his disposal. The metaphor makes sense in reference to Mizzou’s high-powered offense, with ranks fifth nationally in total offense and which is the only team in the country to score more than 30 points in every game in 2007.
Here are a few more stats to chew on before today’s game.
- Chase Daniel ranks second in the Big 12 and fourth in the NCAA in all of these categories: touchdown passes (33), completion percentage (70.5 percent), completions per game (29.08), total offense per game (350.75) and passing yards (3,951). He’s not far behind in several other categories.
- Martin Rucker has the most receptions per game (6.36) of any tight end in the country.
- Jeremy Maclin already holds the NCAA freshman record for all-purpose yardage (2,509).
- Jeff Wolfert is perfect in field goals and extra points in Big 12 play this year and, in fact, in his entire Big 12 conference career. That’s 87 straight kicks made.
With all that offense, though, the defense’s increasingly tough performance often gets overlooked. In Big 12 play, Mizzou ranks first in the conference in total defense. William Moore leads the Big 12 in interceptions (7) and has stepped up in the absence of a much-missed Pig Brown.
The team knows it faces a true challenge in Oklahoma, though. OU quarterback Sam Bradford has built some numbers like Chase Daniel’s, with 32 touchdown passes. Bradford leads an offense whose 43.83 points per game actually top Mizzou’s 41.92.
“Our guy has done pretty well,” OU Coach Bob Stoops said at the press conference yesterday. “For the first time being out there as a redshirt freshman, we couldn’t ask for much more.”
The Mizzou players also respect Bradford’s abilities. “He’s really poised in the pocket, especially for a freshman,” defensive lineman Lorenzo Williams said earlier in the week. “We’ve just got to get to him.”
Posted on
Dec. 1, 2007 by Chris Blose
Category: 2007 Big 12 Championship
The most common sound on San Antonio’s Riverwalk last night was a mixture of “M-I-Z, Z-O-U” and “Boomer Sooner” as Mizzou and Oklahoma fans battled to be the loudest. The Golden Girls helped with their own coordinated effort as they walked through the crowd, and one non-fan added her own “M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E” cheer to the friendly fracas.
The cheer-off continued this morning at ESPN’s College GameDay — broadcast right in front of the Alamo. Mizzou fans screamed, then got even louder as they saw themselves broadcast on the big screen. It’s a mark of success for Mizzou that this popular show appeared for the first time ever at a Mizzou game this year (at Oklahoma), and then did it two more times (Kansas game and today).
Photos by Rob Hill
Above, Mizzou fans roar for ESPN’s College GameDay at the Alamo. Tim Hazlett of Kansas City, Mo., joined the crowd, below.
