Mizzou Links, 8-10-07

The Beef called me after work yesterday to slap me around for jinxing practice yesterday. No injuries? JINX.

• That's right, Van Alexander joined the injury train yesterday. Granted, it doesn't seem serious enough to miss major time, but it's an annoyance. More playing time for the Redmond's, Lambert's and Keck's of the world, I guess. It appears that Justin Garrett got some minor dings as well. But hey...the heat index was about 143 yesterday, so I guess we should count our blessings in the end...at least that's what I'm saying to convince myself I didn't jinx anything...
• Interesting notes from Gabe's practice report: Sean Weatherspoon just keeps getting better and better, Carl Gettis is threatening for playing time, Pig Brown didn't have a great day, and Bart Coslet & John Stull are doing great things at DE (meanwhile, I haven't heard a word about Jaysen Corbett or Tommy Chavis so far in August).
• Best thing about Chad Moller's FootBlog post from yesterday: Greg Bracey's Residence Hall Linebacker skit gets a mention! Of the thousands of silly skits and videos show in the Mizzou dorms over the years, this is the best I've seen. Bracey's a character. And he's really really fast. We really just need to throw him one bomb per half and see what happens. Too bad I can't actually find the video. Anyone wanna help with that one?
• Dave Matter discusses my least-favorite rule change of the offseason: backing kickoffs to the 30. Even if we had a Mason Crosby on the team, I wouldn't like this rule.
• Correction: if we had a Mason Crosby, I wouldn't mind this rule at all. I shouldn't lie to Mizzou Links.
• Matter also continues his Big 12 profiles...this time it's Nebraska's turn. Guess I should just be thankful that he interviewed Ruud without mentioning that there's at least one Mizzou blogger who thinks Ruud's the most overrated defender in the conference, huh?
• Oh, and I meant to post this about five days ago: the NY Post's Mark Cannizzaro loves Brad Smith (he wrote this last October too). Who doesn't?
  
• Oh this is fantastic: not only does mutigers have a great 2007 Volleyball Preview up today (which will deserve it's own post some time soon)...that's right, they've got a VolleyBlog! Blogs are the greatest invention in the history of the world. Well, blogs and Hot Pockets.

So when The Beef called to bitch me out, we also discussed something else: with Carl Gettis' emergence at CB, there's a chance that a third true freshman could lose his redshirt (along with Lambert and Keck). It sounds like Derrick Washington's also still a candidate. Starting in 2005, Pinkel's attitude toward redshirts has become much more liberal. While I'm not sure if that's because the true frosh themselves have gotten better (in 2005, those guys were Chase Daniel and Chase Coffman...pretty hard not to redshirt those guys) or if it's actually due to an attitude shift (2006 saw not only Danario Alexander and Jared Perry--who proved themselves greatly from about October or November onward--but also Sean Weatherspoon and Del Howard--who did well on special teams...but that was about it).

Either way, The Beef's not a fan of the Weatherspoon's and Howard's of the world losing their redshirts. For me, it's a bit of a gray area. Weatherspoon is apparently looking unbelievable in camp right now, and who's to say whether that's because he's naturally a badass who's worked really hard, or if it's at least partially because his relatively minimal playing time last year got him accustomed to the speed of the game? Obviously the Pete Carroll's of the world have no problem playing true frosh, even if just for special teams, because he knows he'll be able to replace them with ease when they finish their eligibility one year earlier than they would have with a redshirt. But will we be as ready to replace Sean Weatherspoon (and Del Howard) after 2009 as 2010? And did their 2006 experience develop them in ways that made it worth it?

Bottom line is, if Gettis outplays Castine Bridges and Paul Simpson (and Kevin Rutland, Tremane Vaughns, and Trey Hobson, for that matter), he should play. But the question is, where's the line? If he's fighting it out for the nickel back position (which, it sounds like, belongs to Justin Garrett), is it worth it?

(In other news, the damn "Read More..." button is being screwy again, so you're just going to have to scroll through this long post. Sorry.)