Mo’s Musings: It’s Hurry Up and Wait Season

Dec 17, 2024 | Uncategorized

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COLLEGE FOOTBALL: NOV 30 Arkansas at Missouri

Plus: SEC has something to prove in the CFP

Some observations around the world of college football, served up in four quarter style. Legal Disclaimer: these views are my own and may be really dumb.


1st Quarter: Mizzou – It’s Hurry Up and Wait Season

On the field, Mizzou is going through bowl practices as they prepare for their upcoming Dec. 30 game against Iowa in the Music City Bowl. There’s very little information to glean from bowl practices, so all us fans can do is sit and wait for the game to get here.

The big question will be surrounding opt-outs for both teams. To date, the big decisions for Mizzou have been Luther Burden III and Armand Membou – both have declared for the NFL Draft and have played their last game as Tigers.

The only other action of interest for fans is the transfer portal, which opened up last Monday. After one week of recruiting visits and speculation, the Tigers landed Mississippi State WR Kevin Coleman, who was second in the SEC in receiving in 2024 for a nice start to portal season.

Of course, the bigger headlines were garnered from “losses” to the roster, including a pair of young defensive ends and a veteran wideout among the headliners. Then on Monday it surfaced that a promising young running back who most thought had a chance to take over RB1 duties next year is entering the portal.

It’s always a little disconcerting to see players leave surprisingly, but it’s completely unrealistic to think that nobody will test the waters in this age of free agency. I know if I had a son with the ability to potentially command more money, putting your name out there for feelers could make sense.

And likely the most hyped news related to Mizzou’s portal shopping had to do with former USC QB Miller Moss, who appeared to be the Tiger staff’s number one preference. Moss picked Louisville over the weekend, which was a disappointing result. It will be interesting to see who the coaching staff decides to court going forward, how much they throw at them from an NIL standpoint, and how that impacts QB recruiting going forward.


2nd Quarter: SEC – Something to Prove this Postseason

I hope that the SEC represents itself well in the postseason, which begins in earnest this weekend with the first round of the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff.

With three entrants, about 2-3 fewer than most people thought the league would earn prior to the 2024 season, the SEC has some work to do to restore its claim as the best conference in the country. The non-playoff bowl games are really a crapshoot with opt-outs and such, so I’ll be looking to the playoff as the true test of league strength. The Big 10 led the way with four bids, while the ACC had two and one each came from the Big 12, Mountain West and independent Notre Dame.

The SEC has two games on Saturday, starting with #5 seeded Texas at home against #12 Clemson. The Longhorns are double-digit favorites in this one, but it seems like they’ve been a little off the last month of the season. We’ll see if they can get back to the roll they were on earlier this year that saw them ascend to #1 two different times. Texas doesn’t need to win in blowout fashion here, but a loss would be quite the dud to what was a very promising first year in the SEC.

Following that one, #9 Tennessee draws a road assignment at #8 Ohio State, whose fans are still seething over a 13-10 loss to a nondescript Michigan team two weeks ago to end the regular season. The Buckeyes are a touchdown favorite at home, but you have to wonder if the Vols take an early lead, will the boo birds come calling in the Horseshoe? A loss here by Tennessee wouldn’t be all that damaging to the league’s perception, unless it was a blowout. I think the Vols are live here as an underdog – even though OSU is certainly one of the more talented teams in the country, and they’ll likely be playing with a chip on their shoulder. Tennessee is so stout up front defensively, it’s a very similar situation that gave Ohio State’s offense fits against Michigan’s outstanding defensive line. If the Vols can get their offense going, watch out for the upset here.

We’ll have to wait until the second weekend of CFP play to see the SEC champ Georgia in the playoffs. The Bulldogs earned the auto-bye due to their overtime win against Texas in the SEC Championship Game two weeks ago. They earned the #2 overall seed and await the winner of this Friday’s game between Indiana and Notre Dame (neither team I see as a threat to win the whole thing). With the availability of Bulldog QB Carson Beck in question, it’s really hard to assess Georgia’s chances in this tournament. I’m going to reserve judgment on this one until we get into game week and the information is more available.


3rd Quarter: National – The Schedule Problem

In this space last week, I was lamenting the fact that schedules have become so unbalanced due to the expansion of conferences into such large entities. In a 16-team conference such as the SEC, or an 18-team league like the Big 10, there’s just no way to currently make schedules equitable.

Without divisions, the random nature of the scheduling led to imbalances where teams like Indiana went 11-1 thanks largely to the fact that they played exactly one ranked team all year – and they lost that one by 23 points to then #2 Ohio State.

Granted, that’s an extreme outlier but it wasn’t the only instance where some teams got a much more favorable scheduling draw than other conference foes.

To me, a reasonable way to help reign this in is for the mega conferences to go back to divisions. It won’t be a perfect way to balance out the schedules, but at least this way, there will be little doubt who the best team is on each side. Then, the division winners square off for their conference championship to decide CFP berths, and so on.

In a 16-team league like the SEC, two eight-team divisions means seven in-division games, and one cross over so you could still protect one traditional rivalry game if teams are in opposite divisions.

So, how do you decide the divisions and who goes where? To those that say this could lead to just as much imbalance as the current setup if the divisions don’t end up with equal strength, it’s a fair point. But why couldn’t you rotate the divisions every 2-4 years to help “reset” things? Kind of like how the NFL does it’s dynamic scheduling each year in order to better promote parity – where the playoff teams get harder schedules the next year?

It’s by no means a perfect concept, but I do think it would help settle the debate a little bit going forward.

If you have other (and likely better) ideas, share them in the comments, I’d love to hear ‘em!


4th Quarter: Dealer’s Choice – Price of Poker is Going Up!

If you are a Mizzou football season ticket holder, then you likely received official 2025 season pricing from the Athletics Department this week. Athletic Director Laird Veatch has been touting for a couple months that prices would be going up, and now we’re seeing the results.

Nobody likes raising prices, whether it’s the AD doing it, or the fans on the consumer side. The department has to toe a tricky line of increasing revenues to cover rising costs, yet not pricing fans out of the market. Obviously, fans don’t want to have to pay more, yet in this modern age of college football, it’s the cost of doing business if you want your team to keep up in the crazy-competitive world of the Southeastern Conference.

If you follow the news, you know that the House settlement led to the oncoming revenue sharing plan that will add more than $20 million on the expense side of the ledger, and that’s the primary reason why prices are going up. Plus, Mizzou hasn’t raised football ticket prices in a dozen years, so it’s understandable.

If you got your notice last week, how did you feel about the price hike? Personally, it was a mixed bag. My required donation to continue in my seats and parking lot is only going up 14%, which is great. The cost of the tickets went up 110%, which obviously is less than ideal. However, you do have to factor in the equation that there are eight home games in 2025, so on a per-game basis, even though the increase is painful, the seats still seem mostly reasonable overall – especially when compared to the prices fans at fellow SEC schools are paying.

Hoping everyone feels the same about their situation. I’d hate to see a bunch of people drop out of being season ticket holders. There will be some attrition no doubt, but I think Mizzou fans in general have enjoyed the taste of big-time football the past couple of seasons, and they’ll accept the increases as a necessary evil.

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