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Transcript

Eli ±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýGood morning everyone, and happy Thursday. Crazy to think that July (and in turn, media days and the start of fall camp) is right around the corner. We'll take your questions and thoughts over the next few hours, so drop them in the chat window at your convenience.

Tom O: What is Drinkwitz plan at quarterback if Horn decides to play professional baseball?

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýWell, that would give Beau Pribula the job by default, wouldn't it? I'm sure there's been some thought about this possibility and what would happen if/when Horn goes in the upcoming MLB draft. Horn will have a decision to make at some point in time. The concern, if for some reason he stepped away from football ahead of this fall (which, to be clear, there's no indication will happen), would be depth behind Pribula. That would probably vault Zollers up to QB2 as a true frosh. 

¸é³Ü²õ²õ:ÌýGood morning, Eli. The vibe I'm getting from across the media landscape is Mizzou will be challenged to win 10 games this year. Does a lot of that vibe come from finding out how Brady's replacement (Pribula, I assume) will perform?

Hoff: The national vibe is probably more than Mizzou will be challenged to win even eight games, to be honest. But I'd tell you that yeah, the challenging bar is 10. A lot of it is based on the idea of replacement in general, given how many positions have turned over. Quarterback is of course the most important. A good showing from the starting QB early on in the season (say, Week 2 vs. Kansas) would do a lot to assuage the doubts over replacing Cook at that position.

Fly Man: What have heard about some of the portal tampering allegations and how do you prove tgey actually happened? Example Illinois vs Georgia.

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýI'll put it this way: I don't know of any specific tampering between two given schools or over one given player. But there's very much a consensus feeling in college sports (football and basketball in particular) that yes, this is happening. Maybe even to an extent where everyone's doing it to each other because there hasn't really been a consequence for it. It could be easy to prove if a ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ texts a player on another team "Hey, hop in the portal and come here for $700k." Perhaps that's how it happens, but I don't think it does. Is it tampering if a team staffer texts a player's agent? Family member? High school ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥? The rise of third-parties in recruitments probably makes it tougher to prove. And of course if the conversation is verbal, records are tough to find. I'll be interested to follow the Wisconsin v. Miami tampering suit, as will a lot of people. But I doubt it will come across as very cut-and-dry.

Fly Man: Hi Eli, roll out your starting 5 basketball players for the opener on Nov 3rd?

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýI feel more confident that this prediction will look silly than I do in it being right — I'll hopefully get to take in a summer practice soon and can then have a little better sense of these transfers and how they'll slot in. Right now, my guess would be: Ant Robinson, Sebastian Mack, Jacob Crews, Mark Mitchell, Shawn Phillips. Maybe Barrett or Boateng start ahead of Phillips for a smaller look. Maybe Pierce beats out Crews. 

´³´Ç³ó²Ô³¢:ÌýGood morning Eli-Just curious on how you ended up at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥. Believe you are from the Twin Cities area. Educate me...

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýHappy to. Yes, I grew up in Minnesota in the Twin Cities area. I knew I wanted to pursue journalism, and Mizzou's journalism school was the obvious place to do it. I didn't know that much about ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ (the school or the state) but came down for the J-School. Besides a short stint in D.C., I haven't left. After picking up my bachelor's from MU, I stuck around to get my master's. Midway through that program, the P-D hired me while I finished the degree — and here we are now! I love living in Columbia and getting over to the STL area when I can... and I look forward to the day that there are three lanes of freeway on the stretch in between.

³¢³Ü:ÌýNot sure how Mizzou-related this is, but do you have any insight as to why stadium funding is such a bigger discussion point for professional teams as opposed to universities?

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýThere are probably more factors than just these, but the price tag is one. A lot of modern stadium projects are in the billions now, whereas Mizzou's renovation (which is only one-fourth of the stadium, to be clear) is $250 million. There's also talks of tax breaks/public funding for big pro stadiums in a way that there isn't for college stadiums. 

¶Ù°ä³Ò:ÌýEli: I keep thinking about this transfer portal for Mizzou men's BB and how underwhelming it is. It seems to me that if Mizzou is going to take the next step forward and move from a team that is competitive and can make the tourney to a team that can do real damage, Gates needs to ditch his obsession with tons of players and with size without talent. If he knew that funds were limited because of retaining their best players, then he needed to be more judicious with where to spend. For instance, signing two 7-footers that can't score is just a waste. I'd rather they combine that money to get a better player.

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýI get that in principle, but it's awful risky to go into a season with eight players you feel comfortable using. There's a balance to find with this, like anything, right? The ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ing staff prioritized guys that they think have a kind of upside to where they can ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ them into something worth more than what the initial price perhaps was. We'll see if that works. Players with size and talent are the most expensive players and rarely stick around college ranks for long, so that's always going to be tough. 

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