Cale Garrett is Destined for Greatness

If you haven’t noticed the human missile that is Cale Garrett wreaking havoc on the field for his 2018 Missouri Tigers, just wait a snap or two. The team’s leading tackler is involved in what seems like every play, demolishing running backs, quarterbacks and wideouts with laser-guided precision. That kind of incendiary consistency could inflate a player’s ego if left unchecked, but Garrett is great precisely because he doesn’t think he is. Not yet, anyway.

“My stepdad did a good job of keeping me humble,” says the junior linebacker from Kearney, Missouri. “He still tells me, ‘Keep working hard at it and maybe you’ll be a good player someday.’ ”

It’s that daily devotion to constant improvement that has made Garrett a team leader, albeit one still looking for his voice. He and his roommate, senior linebacker Terez Hall (second in tackles), provide contrasting styles of leadership. Hall will shout at teammates to “pick it up.” Garrett, well, he has a more workmanlike approach.

“Talk is cheap unless the person that it’s coming from is legit,” says Garrett, complimenting Hall’s bark-bite balance. “I’m the type of player who is going to line up and do my job, but I want to work on being more vocal.”

Garrett’s vision and instincts might seem innate to the casual fan, but he credits head coach Barry Odom and linebackers coach Vernon Hargreaves for trusting his gut and “training his eyes.” His work ethic? That comes from his mother, Lindi Burns.“She has always told me I’m destined for greatness,” Garrett says. “Not a lot of my career has come naturally. I’ve always kind of been that slow kid in the middle. You have to pick something to improve on every single day, then go out and achieve it.”

Garrett is training his ears, too. He recently took up piano, and although he’s “no Beethoven,” it’s another goal on the horizon he hopes to obliterate. “Anything you do should be to the best of your ability,” Garrett says. “The only way I can be as a player is to give everything I can all the time.”

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Tom Hart boarded a flight to Memphis this past Thanksgiving.

“Hello laddie!”  

It was Brent Musburger.

The legendary broadcaster’s welcome filled the cabin as he introduced Hart to folks around him, energetic and complimentary as ever. Something’s wrong here, Hart thought. “Brent Musburger should not be introducing me to anyone. I should be pointing out to everybody else that there’s a legend sitting here.”

Two months later, in January, Musburger announced his retirement, and SEC Network would have to fill a void in its prime-time football coverage. Hart was the answer. Alongside analysts Jordan Rodgers and Cole Cubelic, Hart took Musburger’s role in September as the lead play-by-play voice for SEC Saturday Night.

“I’ve never been the type of broadcaster that tries to pattern my delivery or presentation after someone else — you have to be you and you have to be real,” Hart says. “That being said, if I can replicate the energy and the passion that he brought when telling and sharing the stories of participants, then I will be doing that chair and microphone an honor.”

Hart is a 1998 Missouri graduate and Columbia native who has since built a catalog play-calling sporting events for ESPN, Big Ten Network, Fox Sports Radio and CBS College Sports, among others. He’s called more than 1,200 professional baseball games, was a longtime staple over the airways for Atlanta Braves listeners and has been with SEC Network since its launch. When he got the call to take over SEC Saturday Night, he was crossing ‘College World Series Broadcast Team’ off his bucket list.

Now a regular voice for SEC fans and seven weeks into his prime-time slot, Hart is calling his first Mizzou game of the year on Saturday, a 6:30 p.m. matchup against Georgia in Athens.

“Missouri will be the best passing team Georgia has faced this year, and Lock will be the best passing quarterback they’ve seen thus far,” Hart says. “Mizzou’s capacity for the long ball against Kentucky last week — and the offensive line’s ability to give Lock the time to get it off — is the Tigers’ best chance to put points on the board.” Georgia is a legitimate national championship contender, as Hart sees it, and it’ll be a harsh test for Missouri.

No matter the stadium or the team, though, whether he’s calling his alma mater or not, as a broadcaster, the narration — every interaction, formation, adjustment, play call and emotion — is only part of the job. What’s unmistakable for Hart and his on-air partner, former Vanderbilt quarterback (and Bachelorette winner) Jordan Rodgers, is the chemistry. Call it a natural ability to communicate; Hart calls it preparation. Leading up to the season, one of the biggest changes he made to prepare was watching film — not necessarily of SEC teams or games, but of Rodgers, with whom he had never worked.

“Chemistry is so important in the booth, and we have incredible chemistry off the field. We already know that we get along great and share a very similar sense of humor — I certainly don’t have his hair — but you hope that the chemistry in the booth and on air happens immediately,” Hart says.

Now almost two months into the job, the camera-facing chemistry is certainly there. Prime time means a new team for Hart, but if you’ve followed his college football coverage in the past, you won’t notice a change in his mechanics when calling the game or following action on the field. Where you might see a slight difference is in the presentation of the night’s broadcast. “I think what prime time gives you versus other slots is that you have the opportunity to tell the story of an entire day of college football because it’s a shifting landscape,” Hart says. “What you thought was going to be important at 11 a.m. is now drastically different.”

The result has to be added value for the viewer. Hart (and Rodgers and Cubelic) have the ability throughout the night to add a calculated and researched perspective to their narrative. All three were former college football players, although Hart points out his freshman year playing football at Quincy University in Illinois was slightly different than Cubelic’s years at Auburn and Rodgers’ as a Commodore. But the three spend “an inordinate amount of time” studying and watching film as a group, Hart says, and rightfully so.

“SEC fans are incredibly knowledgeable,” he says. “They’re the most knowledgeable fans out there, I would say, of any sport. They can tell you about the fourth string left tackle, and they can tell you about the fifth string linebacker. But what we can bring to the table is the access.”

The narrative of that access —  what an offensive coordinator sees during the game, what a head coach is thinking prior to kickoff, what a quarterback is like off the field —  is powerful. It forms the stories that Hart has found fans want to hear. Audience participation in storytelling is key, and the feeling of integration in the game and its characters is at the heart of it.

“Fans in general want to know perspective,” he says. “And they often look to us for it. ‘Yes we think our quarterback is great, but tell me how he compares to the guy at Georgia or Auburn,’ or ‘What are we doing defensively that’s different than what Alabama does or different than what Florida does?”

Like Musburger who came before him, Hart’s effort behind the microphone starts with a passion for growing along with his career. “There was always a mixture of confidence and question marks,” he says of his journey through broadcasting. “I thought early on that I had the ability to do this, but I didn’t know that I was going to be provided the opportunities to follow through with it. It was very important for me every step of the my career to first critique myself, see where my growth can come and take a second to be real — to handicap, if I could, what step was next and where this could lead me.”

It led to his first gig calling minor league baseball games in South Carolina. And to a roster assignment with a young catcher named Yadier Molina. To the College World Series in Omaha. And to the Memphis Tigers’ locker room celebration after Coach Calipari led them to that Final Four win in ‘08. “I think my favorite part is seeing the growth of some of the people that I’ve covered. To watch the growth of determined individuals and to know where they’ve been makes me very appreciative of the work that they’ve put in.”

After he retired, Musburger said he’d miss the people most, the ones he met along the trail. He and Hart seem to have that in common — an appreciation of the job, but most importantly the relationships formed through a career in storytelling.

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Running back Damarea Crockett has never had much use for labels. At least not the ones other people attempt to put on him.

Some might look at his 5-foot, 11-inch, 225-pound frame and see a lumbering power back. But he counters with a top speed of 21.6 mph — he clocked that this off-season, putting him in the class of elite NFL-level speed. In Arkansas, some watched him play prep ball at Little Rock Christian High School and thought he could never be an SEC back. Well, we all know how that turned out. “I kind of just laugh at it now,” Crockett says, with a smile. “It’s just crazy how people will tell you what you can’t do.”

Crockett was a revelation during his true freshman season at Mizzou in 2016, rushing for 1,062 yards and 10 touchdowns in only 11 games. His 96.6 rush yards per game ranked first in the nation among freshman backs, and his 6.94 yards per carry ranked sixth in the nation out of all players with at least 150 carries.

He only got stronger as the season wore on. Crockett averaged 49 yards per game and 6.13 yards per carry during his first five games. He increased that to an average of 136.2 yards per game and 7.23 yards per carry during his final six games.

Now he’s one of the focal points of a Mizzou offense that returned 10 starters from a group that set a program record in yards per game last year. But against Purdue, it was the run game that was never established with just 66 yards on 23 carries for the three backs. So it will fall on Crockett to avoid another common label, one about which running back coach Cornell Ford has been reminding him regularly during preseason camp.

The sophomore slump.

“He’ll talk about it like, ‘As far as your work ethic, just don’t feel like you know everything, don’t feel like you’ve got it all. Just keep growing, keep learning, keep moving forward’, ” Crockett says. He spent the off-season striving to keep up the standard he set during his blockbuster freshman year. He is more cognizant of his dietary needs, and more aware of the steps he needs to take to recover after a practice session or a workout in order to keep performing at a high level.

He doesn’t have much free time. When he does, he spends a fair portion of it stretching, working out his hamstrings or rejuvenating in an ice tub. “It’s just the little things, like when you get nicked up, fixing it real fast,” Crockett says. “Just to have your body right for the long haul and keep yourself going.”

On the field, Crockett is working to become a more effective downfield runner, someone who can optimize his potent power-speed combination by getting tough yards between the tackles and finishing off runs rather than ducking out of bounds. He also is drawing from the example of senior back Ish Witter to shore up the deficiencies in his pass-blocking game that cropped up during his first collegiate season. The 195-pound Witter blocks like a 230-pound back. Crockett would like to as well.

“Really having Drew [Lock] and the rest of the quarterbacks comfortable in the pocket when we’re in there, [no matter which] running back is in the game,” Crockett says is important.

Tackle Paul Adams and the rest of the Missouri offensive line have set a lofty goal for Crockett this season: 2,000 rushing
yards. That’s one goal Crockett doesn’t mind. Nor would he mind the Heisman Trophy talk that would inevitably accompany such a feat.

In fact, he welcomes it — as the picture of the Heisman and the word written out in his locker attest. “If I’m going to play football, I don’t play just to be another player,” Crockett says. “I’m playing to be the best.”

Photos by Travis Smith

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Glen Elarbee arrived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in the summer of 1998 as an undersized, lightly recruited offensive lineman. He was listed at 250 pounds in the Middle Tennessee State University media guide, and after a redshirt season, his weight ballooned all the way up to 257. Even in an upstart program that was trying to find its way as it transitioned to Division I, Elarbee was easy to miss. But when Joe Wickline was hired as the offensive line coach in 1999, he saw a potentially special player, one who was hungry to consume every last detail of his craft.

“Right off the bat, here’s one of the things I remember about him,” Wickline says. “As a coach, you go over materials, you go over concepts. Sometimes you’ll be in the gray area, and you might get away with it. And sometimes there’s a guy in the room. Well, Glen was that guy. He’d raise one eyebrow and halfway close the other eye, and you’d know right then you’d better be on your toes when you had the chalk in your hand because he was going to test you. But he did it in a way that was always constructive. He really wanted to know. He’s truly a student of the game.”

In his first two seasons, Elarbee appeared in 12 games as a reserve, and at the beginning of his junior year, now tipping the scales at a robust 275 pounds, he earned the starting job at center. He never gave it back. The Blue Raiders finished 8-3 in 2001 and won the Sun Belt Conference championship. Playing a schedule that featured games against three SEC teams, MTSU ranked fifth in the country in total offense, seventh in rushing offense and ninth in scoring. Elarbee made 23 consecutive starts and earned all-conference honors in each of his final two seasons.

“He was an amazing overachiever,” recalls Wickline, who now is an assistant at West Virginia. “He played with a big chip on his shoulder.”

It is quite the success story. So we probably shouldn’t be surprised that in his first year as the offensive line coach at Missouri, Elarbee took a unit that was arguably the Tigers’ biggest weakness in 2015 and turned it into one of its greatest strengths. In the season before he arrived, Mizzou ranked 125th in the country in total offense, allowed 88 tackles for loss and scored just 15 touchdowns — they didn’t even reach the end zone in five games. Last year the Tigers led the country with just 35 tackles for loss — their per-game average was the best in the country dating to 2005 — and led the SEC in total offense while allowing a conference-low 14 sacks. They were the only team in the conference to produce a 3,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard receiver and a 1,000-yard rusher. Most amazing is that the yards and points were piled up behind a line that was breaking in four new starters and entered the season with a combined three career starts. Although Mizzou finished 4-8, Elarbee was one of 40 nominated for the Broyles Award, which honors the top assistant in college football.

Elarbee has deep roots in the South. He played high school ball in the sleepy Georgia town of Carrollton, about 50 miles west of Atlanta. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics (and then a master’s in sports management) but as his playing career wound down, he had such a passion for the game that he wanted to stay connected to it. Coaching seemed like a natural fit. He worked for two years at his alma mater as a graduate assistant and the tight ends coach, then was a grad assistant at LSU and Oklahoma State. He returned to coach at hometown West Georgia for a couple of seasons. As a full-time assistant at MTSU and Houston, he matched wits with Barry Odom, who at the time was the defensive coordinator at Memphis. Elarbee saw Odom as a brilliant defensive mind, so when their paths crossed in 2013 at a high school clinic and recruiting event in East Texas, he made it a point to introduce himself.

“He was way ahead of the curve on that side of the ball,” Elarbee says of Odom. “I remember going up to him and saying, ‘I have a tremendous amount of respect for you and what you’re doing.’ Some of the three-down [linemen] stuff he was doing at Memphis was making my life a nightmare. We talked a little bit about football. He was awesome, a good dude, open. We talked some schematics.”

Three years later, after Elarbee’s second season at Arkansas State, the two were talking about a job. Having grown up in SEC country, Elarbee had always dreamed of coaching in the conference. He fondly remembered the trips he had made to Columbia as an assistant, so much so that he envisioned Mizzou as a potential landing spot. He was confident his wife, Holly, and their young son would embrace Columbia as heartily as he had. Of course, knowing for whom he’d be working was no small factor.

Elarbee is a humble, self-deprecating individual with an admitted deadpan sense of humor, so it’s no surprise that he’s quick to deflect the credit for the dramatic turnaround his unit made. He praises the work ethic and commitment of his players. He gives a nod to offensive coordinator Josh Heupel and graduate assistant Jon Cooper. He mentions the benefits gained from practicing against an uber-talented defensive line. (“They give me fits every day”). He notes what a valuable resource Odom is — how he might walk in on a Sunday morning and scribble a scheme on the board, suggesting how the defensive coordinator of an upcoming opponent might be plotting.

Yet it’s impossible to dismiss the work of the 37-year-old Elarbee. So just where did he begin with the reconstruction?

“You always start in the same place, just what we want to be about,” he says. “I tried to talk to the guys about five things we want to believe in. The first is being tough and physical. Then we want to give great effort in everything we do. The third goal we have at the start of spring practice is to play smart and intelligently. Then we hone technique. When we get those four things accomplished, we try to be a tight unit, love each other and want to hang around each other.”

Depth was a concern in the spring of 2016, yet Elarbee saw the problem as an opportunity. “The biggest asset was that those guys got a lot of reps,” he says. “They had to soak up a ton of them. The more you do something, the better you get. And it gave them some versatility to play the left side, the right side, inside, outside.”

Then there was the issue of tempo. Mizzou played as fast as any offense in the country last season. Heupel’s no-huddle attack might have been daunting for an assistant who was teaching and shuffling players and learning the nuances of a new system right along with his troops, but Elarbee was unfazed by it all. “I’m used to having to limit calls and communication and playing the game fast,” he says. Adds Wickline, “I know everybody talks about tempo these days, but I’m here to tell you, we were doing that a long time ago.” As the center, Elarbee had to call out assignments at the line of scrimmage, make a shotgun snap and execute his block, all in the span of a few seconds. He can share those experiences, along with the knowledge he has acquired during his 15 years as a coach. He has played and worked under some of the best offensive minds and at some of the top programs in the sport. Larry Fedora, now the coach at North Carolina, was the offensive coordinator at MTSU. Elarbee worked as a graduate assistant under Les Miles when LSU won the national title in 2007 and for Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State, where he reconnected with Wickline, his former position coach. “He really changed who I was,” Elarbee says of Wickline. “He helped me become a man. He taught me a ton about football and life.”

A 35-year coaching veteran, Wickline got an up-close look at his protégé’s work-in-progress when Mizzou and West Virginia opened their 2016 seasons last September. Although the Mountaineers prevailed, the mentor came away impressed. “I was in the SEC for a number of years, and I’ve watched a lot of cross tape,” Wickline says. “I watched their guys progress, and it really didn’t surprise me. He’s fundamentally sound. He communicates extremely well. His players will like him. He’s got a great deal of passion. He doesn’t have a giant ego.”

In other words, Elarbee is a reflection of the player Wickline coached in Murfreesboro: an old-school offensive lineman who would never be outworked and whose love for the game rubbed off on others. It can be contagious. Elarbee coaches without a whistle, preferring instead to say tweet, tweet to signal the end of a drill. He considers the prospect of a whistle dangling from his lips an opportunity lost, a chance missed to communicate with his players. To teach — isn’t that what coaching is all about?

As a player at MTSU, Elarbee owned three pet piranhas. Of course he did. Because nothing screams offensive lineman like a pet piranha. But three? “Can’t have one or two,” he explains. “Not healthy for them.” Or him, as it turns out. On the eve of a game against Tennessee, Elarbee sliced his left hand while cutting up meat to feed his prized possessions. The good news: The gash was on his non-snapping hand. He taped the wound and didn’t miss a down. As a coach, he may have head-butted a chair or bumped a meeting-room wall —  “I’m not sure I’m supposed to divulge those secrets,” he quips —  but it was only to drive home a point. Old school, no doubt about it. At the same time, he keeps pushing ahead, searching for a tweak that might be as subtle as an adjusted hand placement — ever in search of an edge, always trying to get better.

“As a coach, you never feel you’re far enough ahead,” Elarbee says. “You always see that next step you need to take. It’s hard to look back and say, ‘We were here,’ when all you want is to keep looking forward.”

Then allow us: Suffice it to say that the Missouri offensive line is in a much better place than it was a year ago.

Photos: Caroline Hall

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In the summer of 2014, a shaggy-haired 17-year-old from Missouri landed in Beaverton, Oregon, to compete against a stacked deck of Elite 11 quarterbacks — Blake Barnett, Kyler Murray and Josh Rosen were just a few of the impressive arms in the camp. The summer event is without question the most-hyped quarterback showcase and skills competition for rising high school seniors.

For Trent Dilfer, Super Bowl-winning quarterback and Elite 11 coach, the annual camp is an opportunity to evaluate highly talented athletes.

Drew Lock was among the invitees. He just wasn’t sure he belonged.

A year earlier, Lock’s dad, Andy, and his Lee’s Summit High School coach, Eric Thomas, sat him down. They rolled tape from a previous Elite 11 competition. “You’re good enough to do that,” they told him. Drew studied the names of Elite 11 alums — Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger and Andrew Luck, among them. Maybe, he thought.

“I’m not one to think super big of myself, so when they told me that, I was like yeah, I think I can do that,” Lock recalls. He’s calm, and his is voice sincere, even amid the hustle and bustle around him. “From that day on, I thought if they can see it in me, then I should see it in me.”

Confidence and profound humility — the two might seem to be a paradox in a leader. Shouldn’t one run counter to the other? Not for Drew Lock; in high school, he threw for 63 touchdowns with just 12 interceptions in his final two years. But internally, separating himself from the pack — great quarterbacks from good ones — took humility and self-awareness, resilience and a willingness to learn. Elite 11 would prove to be a turning point for Lock, a moment in time when he recognized his potential. “When I came back from [Elite 11], I was [ranked] five or six out of the 11,” Lock says. “I was 1-2 for most of the camp. I was like, wow, these are the best quarterbacks in the country. Again, I’m proving myself wrong.” 

Dilfer didn’t need much convincing. “I can’t say enough good things about Drew,” he says. “I’ve been doing this for seven years, and there are a lot of kids you have an affinity for, you get excited about. Drew’s on that top-10 list of kids I was most excited to evaluate, coach and follow his career. He’s willing to learn, willing to adapt and willing to grow. You’re looking for kids who have that thirst to learn, thirst to grow, thirst to chase their potential. He has all of that.”

The four-star recruit piqued the interest of those watching an elite group in the high school quarterback landscape. For Dilfer, Lock’s coachability stood out, but so did his physical makeup, mental toughness, resiliency, intuition, football IQ — you get the picture. These are all attributes seen in the top quarterbacks at collegiate and professional levels. “You take these formulas and you wrestle with them,” Dilfer says. “This is a kid who should have an enormous ceiling.”

Today, Lock is an SEC quarterback with 22 career starts, but a 7-15 record as Mizzou’s guy. Hardly a ceiling. His record comes with plenty of context, which began when he was thrown into a gauntlet of SEC play. His first career start was just five games into his freshman season.

“The first year, he was playing against a stacked deck,” Dilfer says. “I think last year we started to see glimpses of his resiliency, toughness. I don’t know that there’s a better trait that you can have as a quarterback than that internal resiliency — that you’re never going to quit or fold, just keep fighting through adversity. He’s done that at Missouri.”

Lock has experienced more than his share of adversity, but success is a lousy teacher, right? Progress was made through his diligence as a student of the game, digesting the playbook and offense. Last season, his first under offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Josh Heupel, Lock surged his passer efficiency rating to 133.3 — not terribly far from Chase Daniel’s school-record 159.4. But he did that completing only 54.6 percent of his attempts in a passer-friendly offense.

Completion percentage is it for Lock. He finished his sophomore season with 23 touchdown passes and led the SEC with 3,399 passing yards, the latter somewhat inflated: During six entertaining quarters against Eastern Michigan and Delaware State, Lock threw for 852 yards and 10 touchdowns.

“The number one for me is the completion percentage,” he says. Lock ranked ninth in the league in that category. “In my mind, me putting it in the dirt, overthrowing somebody or putting it out of bounds is a negative play. Bumping that completion percentage up is my number one focus, and that’s how we’re tracking it every day.”

Lock ranked third in the league in passing yards per game (248.3), but sixth in efficiency (119.9). Then there are the wins and losses. He knows as well as anyone, above any jaw-dropping stats, that’s the way a quarterback’s success is measured.

Dilfer, however, cautions in getting too caught up in a quarterback’s first 18 starts, outside of the resilience, endurance and some splash plays. There’s a reason they’re put on the field early in their career.  “Do they have the toughness to survive?” Dilfer says. “[Coaches] want to see if you can last, if you can survive, and he’s done that. The big growth really starts at [games] 18 to 30. You’re really looking to see that he’s better at start 29 than he was at 18. This is the year we’re going to see this.”

In the first week of the season against Missouri State, Lock gave us those splash plays and the stats to back it up: 21 for 34 with 7 touchdowns and 521 yards, both of which were school records.

It’s the off-field time that Lock has dedicated to mastering Mizzou’s offense that will determine his success this fall. Lock says he was a different player when he showed up in August. What changed? “Long meetings in the quarterback room,” he says. “We were starting from play one and going through every play in our playbook. It got to be really taxing, long days and really long nights. But in order for us to feel comfortable out there, we need to do that.” That being to tirelessly study every defensive scheme, every hot read, every role.

It all comes back to confidence. For Lock, the first two years at Mizzou weren’t unlike what he felt heading into the Elite 11 finals. But his confidence grew in Oregon as he proved he belonged. Now it’s time to produce in the SEC.

Production starts with presence; every quarterback commands with it. Not animated or loud, Lock is at his best when he’s relaxed, calming teammates with his personality. He likes to sing. It might be rap or country — the other day it was Randy Travis. “Being relaxed comes from knowing your job cold,” Lock says. “When you’re relaxed you can go out there no worries, just reading your reads, keying your keys, doing the small things to make it right.”

Adds Dilfer, “Presence is a huge thing. He just has that quiet swag to him. I don’t even like the word swag, but I think everybody uses it, so it paints a picture. He doesn’t have to be boisterous, but he’s got that quiet confidence, that quiet swag that people feel.”

Lock’s presence will be significant this season because there are plenty of unknowns. Can a returning offensive line, arguably the Tigers’ greatest strength in 2016, perform at the same high level? What strides will Mizzou continue to make defensively? Will the kicking game come around?

And will Lock take the next step? Coach Barry Odom has watched his quarterback progress as a leader, quietly taking command of the huddle and the offense. He is reading defenses better, and the extra work he put in during spring ball and fall camp is evident. Couple his growth with the talent around him, and Mizzou’s offense has the potential to be even more efficient — and explosive — than it was last year. Dilfer knows Lock’s potential as a pro-style QB, but now it’s time for results.

“They need to see him run the show,” Dilfer says. “That’s a big part on him and a big part on the offense. I think the NFL scouts — I’ve talked to a lot of them — are excited about his athletic makeup, but they need to see the production.”

If the growth is there, Dilfer believes you might see glimpses of a Sam Bradford, the Heisman-winning quarterback Heupel helped groom. “He’ll need [to show] a mastery of the offense — to see the offense and himself grow together,” Dilfer says. “Really good quarterback evaluators will marry the two. They don’t just look at the quarterback, and they don’t just look at the offense; they look at the synergy between the two. Does the quarterback have mastery of it, and does the offense give him the opportunity to master it? If I’m a GM putting together a board of quarterbacks in the junior class, right now Drew is probably not in the top five. But I think he has a chance to be number one by the end of the season, if you’re seeing that growth happen in front of your own eyes.”

Football is a game of ups and downs; Lock knows it. “Especially in this conference when you’ve got guys lined up left and right trying to take your head off,” he says. “And they’re the best in the country at doing it. But this year, we’re focused on winning ball games … Stats and all the rest will come with wins.”

Photos by Nick MeBruer 

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Year One wasn’t good enough. Everybody knows it. “I did probably a little too much last year, or tried to,” says head coach Barry Odom. “For a number of reasons, we didn’t play very well early in the season. At the end of the day, I didn’t do a good enough job of getting those guys ready to go play their best.”

Year One was a 4-and-8 debut. The young roster drew a tough opener at West Virginia and lost a heartbreaker to Georgia in week three — one could argue they never really recovered. Florida, LSU and Kentucky beat Mizzou by a combined score of 117-45; the Tigers lost to Tennessee by 26 points, despite a school record 740 yards of total offense; and MTSU beat Missouri in Columbia.

The Tigers did rebound to win two of the final three, beating Vanderbilt and overcoming a 24-7 halftime deficit to knock off bowl-bound Arkansas. “I thought winning two out of the last three was huge, and then having the total yards we did against Tennessee,” Drew Lock says. “I think that started to show a little bit more what we’re capable of and what we know we’re capable of. I think having had that momentum going into the off-season, you can look back on that.”

The optimists will say that final stretch indicates a team ready to take the next step, particularly when 10 of the offense’s 11 starters return (Kendall Blanton and Jason Reese will step up to replace tight end Sean Culkin). Following the Arkansas game, Missouri ranked 15th in the FBS in total offense, averaging 500.5 yards a game. But the pessimists will point to a defense that tumbled from one of the nation’s best to one of its worst, as Odom moved from defensive coordinator to head coach and handed the reins to DeMontie Cross. In 2015 the Tigers stood at 302 yards allowed per game, sixth in the FBS in total defense. Last year, the unit fell to 117th with 479.7 yards allowed per game.

“I don’t ever wait for the end of the year and ask ‘Why weren’t we very good,’ ” Odom says. “The air’s cleaner, I like our staff, I like our locker room, and I’m excited about what this team’s going to do.”

Everyone recognizes improvement has to happen. Last year was Missouri’s second consecutive season with a losing record. Stacking a third on top of it would make it that much tougher to emerge from the tailspin. So what marks improvement for Odom’s second season?

“I think to get to six wins is progress,” says Director of Athletics Jim Sterk. “I think that’s a minimum of what you would want, what our alums want. As a team, they’ll be disappointed with that, but I think that’s moving forward and being bowl eligible. And getting a great bowl, I think that’s really important for us.”

“I have felt pressure every day of my working life,” Odom says. “I think being in the proverbial hot seat, I put that on myself. When I started as a GA for Coach Pinkel in December of 2002, I felt like I was on a job interview every day of my working life, and I’ve continued that approach every day.”

Odom was the one to bring up the term ‘hot seat.’ Most aren’t there just yet, including the only person whose opinion really matters. “I think he took over the program in kind of a tough time,” Sterk says. “There was a lot going on, and I think he’s really stabilized it and is preparing to move forward. I like what I see there, and I think they’re excited as a group as well.”

Outside of Columbia, not many have faith. USA Today released its annual preseason polls with Missouri finishing an optimistic 7-5. League media had other thoughts. The Tigers were picked seventh (last) in the SEC East following July’s Media Days. They finished nearly 200 points behind 6th place Vanderbilt in the preseason poll. Only wide receiver J’Mon Moore (2nd team) and defensive
end Marcell Frazier (3rd team) received any individual preseason recognition.

And so, Missouri finds itself in a familiar position: having to prove itself. “I think they’re coming out to win a title,” Sterk says. “Whether they do or not, I think there are a lot of factors that will play into that, but they have a great group coming back.” The Tigers have been here before. They were picked 6th in the East in 2013 and 4th in 2014. They won the division both years. That goal may be a bit lofty for these Tigers, but time will tell.

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In 1896, the Missouri Tigers Went Missing

More than a century ago, Missouri’s football team took an unapproved Christmas vacation of the Chevy Chase variety. Following a scheduled December game against Texas, they left the territorial boundaries of the United States to play a few postseason matchups in Mexico City. The only problem: no one informed the University.

Few accounts of the fateful trip survived, except for stories in the university yearbook, the Savitar, and a 1921 interview with then-student and team manager George H. English Jr. in the Joliet (Ill.) Evening Herald-News. Although the team won just a few scheduled football games in 1896, its story will forever live — albeit rarely told — in the annals of Missouri football history.

An offer they couldn’t refuse
After a disappointing Thanksgiving day loss to Kansas, the Tigers looked for redemption — and perhaps warmer weather — in Texas. The team left Columbia by train on December 10, and four days later beat the University of Texas Longhorns in a somewhat anticlimactic four quarters. The Tigers won 10-0 during a game the Savitar called “slow and uninteresting.”

But the drama would soon commence.

An Austin, Texas, promoter named George A. Hill had been planning to host the first-ever American football games in Mexico, all to be played during the holiday season and during the student-athletes’ Christmas break. His dream was to match the Longhorns against a team of all-stars, but those 
plans changed.

“Our defeat of Texas rather put a crimp in his plans, and besides, he had been unable to line up his all-star team satisfactorily,” English told the Joliet Evening Herald-News. “So he asked us whether we wouldn’t like to go along — with all expenses paid — and play the University of Texas again at Laredo, Monterrey, the City of Mexico (now Mexico City) and outlying points. As there was nothing to restrain us except college discipline, we said we’d love to.”

But English and the team neglected to perform one slight detail: No one bothered to inform university President Richard Henry Jesse (for whom Jesse Hall is named). “We didn’t communicate with college authorities back in Columbia at all,” English said. “What would have been the use? They would only have ordered us to come home.”

Mexico’s President Porfirio Diaz approved the south of the border game, even planning to attend. While they waited to travel, the Tigers barnstormed around Texas, beating the San Antonio YMCA, 29-0, and the Austin YMCA, 21-0. Both the Tigers and the Longhorns boarded a train for Mexico on December 22 and arrived in Monterrey on Christmas Eve. The next day, in a pregame of sorts, the Tigers again beat the Longhorns, 18-4. Both head coaches played.

Finally, on December 27, the big game was played in Mexico City. “The first football game ever played in the Republic of Mexico took place here yesterday between the Missouri Tigers and the Texas University team,” the New York Times reported. “The game resulted in a score of 12-0 in favor of the Tigers. Fully, 3,000 people witnessed the sport.”

The reaction from the Mexico City audience to the game was a collective yawn. “It is not likely that so violent and muscular a game will be introduced here,” noted a story in The Mexican Herald. 
”Football will probably remain an exotic as far as Mexico is concerned.”

“The Mexicans didn’t take the least interest in football,” English said. “They evidently regarded it as merely another bit of evidence pointing to madness of all Americans.”

President Diaz was not in attendance, opting instead to attend a bullfight across town; but Thomas Theodore Crittenden was there. The former Missouri governor was consul general to Mexico under President Grover Cleveland. (Crittenden’s claim to fame was offering a reward for the capture of outlaw Jesse James. It led to the shooting of James by Robert Ford, whom Crittenden later pardoned.)

Facing the music
Shortly after New Year’s Day, the Tigers boarded a train back to Columbia to face an uncertain fate. After a round trip of 21 days and 6,000 miles, they encountered an angry President Jesse and a university disciplinary committee. Head coach Frank Patterson was fired (or “left for pastures new,” as English phrased it). English and team captain Tom Shawhan were both suspended, but took it in stride.

“It was made effective during the week of the midyear examinations,” English said, “and as my standing was luckily good enough for me to pass in all my courses without the tests, it merely gave me a week’s holiday, while everybody else was boning up for examinations.”

As a measure of atonement, a letter from Crittenden surfaced years later. The consul general commended the Tigers for the manner in which they had represented the University while in Mexico: “The American boys have behaved remarkably well since their arrival here — so far none of the wild freaks of the college boy — away from the professors’ gaze and the charming Columbians.”

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Now what?

What are the expectations in 2017 for a 4-8 Missouri football team who showed so much promise yet at times couldn’t get out of its own way? Can an offense that led the Southeastern Conference in total yards take the next step as it returns 10 starters? Or will it again be plagued by untimely drops from a talented yet inconsistent receiving corps? Can the Tigers fix the defensive issues that troubled them for most of the year? Or will Mizzou struggle once again to stop the run? And how will head coach Barry Odom and his staff benefit from his first full year of experience?

So many questions. So much anticipation.

“I expect we’ll see a team playing with a lot more pride and a lot more fight; a team that will understand what its identity is,” says Howard Richards, the Mizzou football radio analyst turned Assistant Athletic Director for Community Relations. “They didn’t have an identity last year. Over the offseason, they will build that identity, build on that brand of who they are.”

No doubt there is plenty to build upon, especially when you consider what the offense accomplished in 2016. Although their numbers were skewed by lopsided wins over Eastern Michigan and Delaware State, the Tigers still racked up 500.5 yards per game. They were second in the SEC in passing yards, with 295.4 yards per game, and a respectable eighth in rushing. Most remarkable is that these numbers came just one year after Mizzou ranked last in the conference in total passing and rushing yards, as well as points scored. The most encouraging prospect: There’s plenty of room for improvement, particularly from quarterback Drew Lock and his receivers. Everything revolves around Lock, who will begin his third year under center and his second season directing coordinator Josh Heupel’s no-huddle attack.

“When he’s on, there’s not a better quarterback in the conference,” says former Missouri wide receiver T.J. Moe, who in four seasons caught 188 passes with12 touchdowns.

The issue, however, is that even as Lock threw for 23 touchdowns and 3,399 yards — the fifth most in program history — he was plagued by inconsistency. For all of his gaudy statistics, Moe says, Lock never put together a full half, much less a complete game. Consider: He lit up Georgia for 376 passing yards, but threw three second-half interceptions in a gut-wrenching one-point loss. In the midst of a defensive struggle against Florida, he threw a pair of pick-sixes late in the first half, and the game devolved into a rout. At Tennessee, Mizzou piled up 740 yards but played uphill the entire second half after Lock threw an interception on the first snap of the third quarter that set up the Vols on a short field.

“Having been a receiver, I look at the quarterback a little differently,” Moe says. “It’s not necessarily the production just yet, and it’s not necessarily how he looks doing it. It’s the velocity with which he can deliver the football and the touch he can put on it.

“If you can get his mechanics to be consistent and get repetition this off-season, with that potential you’re absolutely looking at an all-conference talent. Generally, when you’ve got an all-conference talent at quarterback, you’re competing for championships.”

Odom, for one, is bullish on Lock. During a December appearance on KFNS radio in St. Louis, at Moe’s behest, the coach played word association on a handful of players. When Moe threw out Lock’s name, without hesitation Odom said, “Competitor. Super talented. Will lead us to a championship.”

No pressure there, kid. Some would argue that’s an unreasonable expectation to place on a career 52.5 percent passer who is 6-14 as a starter. But the comment speaks volumes about Lock’s tremendous potential, as well as the largely untapped talent with which Odom and Heupel have surrounded their quarterback.

In 11 games, including three in which he had only 16 combined carries, true freshman Damarea Crockett ran for 1,062 yards, averaged 6.9 yards per carry and scored 10 touchdowns. Yet while Crockett, one of several of Odom’s 11th-hour recruiting coups, was a pleasant surprise, he wasn’t the biggest one. That honor was bestowed upon a retooled offensive line, which went from being Mizzou’s most glaring weakness in 2015 to arguably its greatest strength. New offensive line coach Glen Elarbee was quite simply a miracle worker. Plugging in four new starters, the Tigers were first in the country in tackles for loss allowed, with 35, and led the SEC in fewest sacks allowed, with 13.

Richards knows a thing or two about offensive-line technique. He started 40 consecutive games at right tackle for Missouri from 1977-90, and was the first-round draft pick of the Dallas Cowboys in 1981. “Because of the line play, the quarterback play was elevated,” Richards says. “Drew Lock has his critics, but just look at what he has been able to accomplish. That was a direct reflection of how the offensive line played.”

As he continues to develop and become more comfortable in the offense, Lock could use a little help from his friends. The wideouts in 2015 were an enigmatic bunch, capable of delivering a highlight-reel reception, yet also prone to the untimely, inexcusable drop. Moe minces no words.

“Probably every receiver on that roster is more athletic than I was, but most of them have been about half as productive,” he says. “It’s a lack of concentration. Perhaps it’s a lack of work ethic, a lack of preparation. How many times did J’Mon Moore fumble after making a great catch? And how many times was there a big drop down the sideline when you had your man beat by three yards and you would have had a walk-in touchdown?” Moe asks. “There are little things that should have been gimmes that changed the whole outlook of the season. Instead, we look at the group and say, ‘Gosh darn, they’re inconsistent.’

“That group can be really good” he says. “These guys can run by you. They just need to hammer down this offseason and get to it.”

Adds Richards, “If you had probably half the drops back, you’re looking at two more wins. And not just the wins. They’ll roll off more plays. They’ll control the clock.”

Ah, the clock. Missouri was 128th in the country — dead last — in time of possession, at 24:18. (Amazingly, despite the limited time on the field, the offense played so fast that it ran only two fewer players than its opponents: 948 versus 950.) The dangers with any hurry-up attack are the short possessions and the multiple three-and-outs — your defense is repeatedly exposed, no matter how good it might be. And in 2016, Mizzou’s defense was, in two words, exposed and bad. The Tigers were last in the SEC and 118th in the country in total defense. They were 13th and 112th against the run and 12th and 86th against the pass. Considering Odom’s background and the recent success Missouri had enjoyed on that side of the ball, the defensive struggles
were as shocking as the offensive-line play was a surprise.

In 2015, when Odom served as defensive coordinator, the Tigers were sixth in the country in total defense, even with an offense that ranked 124th in total yards and 116th in time of possession (27:02). Although several key players departed — most notably all-SEC linebacker Kentrell Brothers — Odom and new coordinator DeMontie Cross had the foundation upon which to build a strong unit. The issue came when Odom scrapped the attack scheme for a read-and-react system.

West Virginia piled up 494 yards. LSU gashed the Tigers for 634 yards, including 418 on the ground. Even Middle Tennessee State moved up and down the field at will, with 311 yards rushing and another 284 yards passing. Odom took over play-calling duties from Cross, and finally went back to the attack scheme that called for players to tackle the ball carrier on their way to the quarterback. But the damage had been done. As Moe notes, while most defenders knew the old scheme, first-year players had to learn an unfamiliar system on the fly. A year after giving up an average of 302 yards per game, the Tigers gave up 400 yards or more to all 11 of their FBS opponents.

“I imagine there was difficulty buying in,” Richards says. “There were issues with responsibilities and players alluding to having to think too much. The simpler it is, the easier it is to play. You have less to absorb. It’s easier to do than when you have a billion things to remember.”

So why will 2017 be any different? For one, Odom has a year under his belt and a coaching staff and a system in place. The player boycott of 2015 is a distant memory. Players better understand what the expectations are. There is the opportunity to build on victories in the final third of the season over Vanderbilt and Arkansas; the defense was salty in the second half of each of those games, and the Tigers rallied from a 24-7 halftime deficit against the Razorbacks. In any event, Richards and Moe agree that Odom is the man for the job.

“The testament to Barry’s character and abilities as a coach was shown when he was introduced as the head coach,” Richards says. “The way those players responded to him, they knew what he meant to them as a football coach. Barry’s the right guy. He has the temperament. He has the youth and the desire to turn this program around. As a player, you have to understand what your coach is trying to teach you. If you aren’t able to push aside the distractions and focus on that particular task, you can’t be successful.”

As someone who played at Mizzou when Odom was an assistant, Moe has seen it all first-hand. He is among Odom’s biggest fans. “Coach Odom has a warm personality toward his players and gets to know you and cares about you,” Moe says. “And he doesn’t have this huge barrier: I’m the head coach, the king, the dictator. That’s not the relationship he has with the guys. But don’t get me wrong: He has a strong personality, and when he talks, you listen.”

Perhaps Odom’s biggest accomplishment as a rookie head coach was holding the locker room together as Missouri struggled through a five-game skid. With road contests against West Virginia, LSU and Florida and an SEC home opener against Georgia in the first half of the season, the schedule-makers didn’t do the Tigers any favors. When it was mentioned during an October interview that better days were ahead and that hopefully he was at least enjoying the ride, Odom replied matter-of-factly, “We just need to win some games.”

Better days are ahead, and with a run of four consecutive home games to open the 2017 season — against Missouri State, South Carolina, Purdue and Auburn — the upcoming September schedule is every bit as kind as the 2016 early slate was brutal. It serves as an opportunity to build some real momentum. A bowl invitation is expected, but should fans expect more?

Richards recalls a recent conversation with former Mizzou teammate Kellen Winslow, the Pro Football Hall of Fame tight end. Winslow noted that there was one thing missing on the Tigers’ schedule. “You know what it is?” Richards recalls Winslow saying. “They don’t have the SEC championship game on there. That should be the goal.”

No question.

Mark Godich is a senior editor at Sports Illustrated and the author of the 2013 book, Tigers vs Jayhawks: From the Civil War to the Battle for No. 1.

The post Forward Progress appeared first on ZOUNation Magazine.

Under Construction

In a matter of weeks, Jim Sterk accepted two of the top five largest donations in program history. But the new athletic director understands that just as critical to his job are the efforts to repair a University’s image and a program’s reputation.

Jim Sterk never saw it coming. Todd Turner of the search firm Collegiate Sports Associates was on the other end of the line, reaching out to gauge Sterk’s interest in the vacant athletic director position at the University of Missouri.

For more than six years, Sterk had served in the same capacity at San Diego State, having helped take the Aztecs to new heights while exploring the viability of getting the school into a Power Five conference. He was 60, a man with West Coast roots and no history of jumping from job to job. “My wife and I were not looking to leave San Diego,” Sterk told me in a recent telephone interview. “I don’t think anyone is looking to leave San Diego. I felt like I was on vacation after six and a half years — I wake up every morning and there are palm trees in my backyard.”

Understandably, the last place to which Sterk could have envisioned himself relocating was Columbia, Missouri. The university had an interim president and an interim chancellor and was just nine months removed from a student protest over perceived racism, a demonstration that shook the campus to its core after players on the football team threw their support behind it. A Title IX investigation into the behavior of softball coach Ehren Earleywine had dragged on for months, and the AD job was open only because Mack Rhoades bolted for Baylor after only 14 months in the position. Baylor wasn’t without its issues, and outsiders conjectured that Rhoades’s departure was an indication of how dire the situation was at Mizzou.

But the more he talked with Turner, the more curious Sterk became about the position. “As we dug into it, it intrigued me more and more,” he says.

He and his wife, Debi, liked the idea of living in a college town that had so much to offer. In fact, Columbia reminded Sterk of Pullman, Washington, the home of Washington State, where he served as AD from 2000-10.

“Pullman on steroids,” as he calls Columbia.

An AAU-accredited, land-grant university with medical and law schools was a draw. Then there was the athletic affiliation with the SEC. And for all of the talk of instability, the continuity in the athletics department could not be dismissed. Mike Alden, Rhoades’ predecessor, had served for 17 years. Gary Pinkel was on the sideline for 15 years, a remarkable feat in the high-pressure world of college football. The situation couldn’t be that bad, could it?

“Basically, the national public perception of Columbia wasn’t reality,” Sterk says. “I looked at it as an opportunity and a challenge to really help it move forward. How do you change the image and the brand? That got my juices flowing. Especially if it was as good a place as I thought.”

In the end, he decided it was. On August 11, Sterk was introduced as Mizzou’s new athletic director. At a morning press conference, he called the job a “destination spot,” adding, “I have no intention of leaving, so you’re stuck with me.”

His most pleasant surprise? “That the people are even better than advertised.” After the press conference, the line to welcome Debi was longer than his. “People were genuinely interested in meeting her and talking to her,” he says. Sterk shares the story of a visit he and Debi made to Columbia. They were getting out of their car in front of the Tiger Hotel when a stranger who happened to be walking by collected her luggage and hustled it inside. “In California, you sometimes have to worry that [the luggage] would be gone,” he quips.

Sterk’s opportunity doesn’t come without baggage — among other things, he will commission an outside party to help amp up ticket sales for football, and he will closely monitor the progress shown by the men’s basketball team under third-year coach Kim Anderson — but his first order of business was to talk to as many of his colleagues as possible. First up: Barry Odom, in a meeting that came shortly after the press conference. Put yourself in Odom’s shoes. He’s 39, three weeks from making his head coaching debut. The guy who hired him had left abruptly, breaking the news of his departure the night before Odom was to appear at the circus that is SEC Media Days. Now the new boss wanted a word.

Turns out that Sterk didn’t want to talk as much as he wanted to listen. It’s a recurring story: He wants to know what you think. It’s an admirable quality that has helped make the man a success, developed over a three-decade career in athletics administration that has spanned from coast to coast. In independent conversations, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and his predecessor Mike Slive both told Sterk that Mizzou’s facilities were severely lacking compared with those of almost all other schools in the conference. Now, Sterk was getting a first-hand look with Odom filling the role of tour guide. It had been a whirlwind morning for the new AD; nevertheless, the coach had his undivided attention.

“I felt sorry for him when he got to our facility,” Odom says. “I could tell he’d had a long day already. I knew what was on my list, and we walked and talked. The number one thing we agreed on is that we have to have facilities that are competitive for us to win a championship. And we’re going to have facilities that allow our student-athletes to be successful in every area, from sports medicine to our academic resource center to our weight room to our dining hall to our meeting spaces. Then you have to put yourself in the shoes of your student-athletes on how it fits in the day-to-day operation. When you’re dealing with 540 student-athletes, you want to make sure every one of them has what they need to be successful.”

At the top of Odom’s wish list was a football facility at the south end of Faurot Field. It was an idea first broached by Pinkel and a project that has been discussed for years. But when he arrived in April 2015, Rhoades had made it clear that he preferred a facility that catered to athletes in all sports. Sterk had talked by phone regularly with Odom, even before they were formally introduced, and got on board quickly with the original plan. Odom has been impressed every step of the way.

“He’s never been the guy who walks into the room and says, ‘Look at me,’” Odom says. “He’s going to work extremely hard, and he’s going to treat people right. There’s no question who’s in control of the meeting, but he’s a great listener.”

A couple of hours before making that observation to me, Odom had attended the weekly head coaches’ meeting that Sterk convenes. The session typically lasts an hour, and on this day, the athletic director spent almost the entire time taking notes, listening to his coaches and gathering material so he’ll be prepared to make informed decisions. He is nothing if not thorough. Odom, for one, likes his demeanor and his management style.

“It’s been fun to start to solve problems with him,” the head coach says.

If he had been taking notes about Odom, Sterk couldn’t have been blamed had he scribbled down why someone with no college head-coaching experience was handed the keys to a Power Five program in the sport’s toughest conference. But he has been nothing but impressed with Odom and his vision for rebuilding a successful football program.

“He’s a great one,” Sterk says. “He’s a really, really good fit for here; he has a passion. Everything he does: How can we move one step closer to winning that national title? I want to help him do that. My job is to facilitate and make that happen.”

So, he’s rolled up his sleeves and gone to work, meeting alumni and friends of the university and officials around the state. In a matter of weeks, Sterk has accepted anonymous donations of $10 million and $8 million; they represent two of the top five donations in program history. More contributions are on the way. The plan is to complete the project in three phases: the construction of the south end-zone complex, the addition of a 100-yard indoor facility, and the retrofitting of the Missouri Athletic Training Complex. The first phase comes with an estimated $75-80 million price tag. And in addition to the football facility, it will include structural stadium work, restrooms and concessions, and the potential to add premium seating. “Guys in the apartment business say that if you’re 90 percent occupied, it’s a good time to build,” Sterk says. Capacity on the premium seating added in 2014 as part of the east side renovation is at 97 percent.

So, build he will. Mizzou is working on a master plan with Kansas City-based HOK — a design, architecture, building and planning firm — who will help select an architect to handle the project. A procedural presentation was made at the Board of Curators meeting on October 6, and ideally, Sterk will get final approval when the board convenes again in February 2017.

“It’s going to be a football building, but it’s going to benefit our entire athletics program because it frees up the crowded space we had in the MATC as far as weight room, medical training and equipment room,” Sterk says. The MATC, he notes, has outgrown its purpose. “It’s been trying to solve everything for everybody.”

Locker rooms are all the rage among players and recruits, and Mizzou intends to do everything it can to keep up with the Joneses. Sterk has encouraged Odom to identify “what are the best ones out there and why?” — not only in locker rooms but also in overall facilities. Throughout his tenure, Pinkel trumpeted the need for first-class facilities to be successful — “If you don’t see cranes up, something’s wrong,” he would say.

Well, the cranes are coming, and Pinkel is happily involved. No timetable has been set for the completion of the first phase, but Sterk knows that time is of the essence.

“It’s a positive urgency,” he says. “You can’t be behind the times, per se, in facilities and compete at the highest level. This is one of, if not the most competitive football league in the country. We need to be comparable and do it our way — the Mizzou way — and make it unique and attractive and inviting.”

But brick and mortar can carry you only so far. Sterk understands that doing his part to repair a university’s image and rebrand an athletic department will be every bit as critical as the money he raises and the construction projects he oversees. He reflects on a conversation with A.J. Ofodile, a kid from Detroit who played for the Tigers and in the NFL, coached down the street at Rock Bridge High School, then returned to Missouri’s football program this year as Odom’s recruiting coordinator.

“He talked about how this was the most inclusive place he has ever lived,” Sterk says. “He was talking passionately about Mizzou and the great things it has to offer. That’s the message that we have to continue to get out there — what is truly the experience here. People from Missouri are “show-me.” They’re not trying to show off. I think part of it is coming out of the shell and being more proactive in telling the story about the things that are going on here. I’ve got to help everyone toot their own horns a little bit, because there are a lot of great things going on. Our student-athletes are having a great experience.”

Save for the lack of palm trees, Jim Sterk expects the same.

Mark Godich is a senior editor at Sports Illustrated and the author of the 2013 book, Tigers vs Jayhawks: From the Civil War to the Battle for No. 1.

Photos: Nicholas Mebruer | MebruerActionPhotography.com

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Frank Broyles and the Missouri-Arkansas rivalry

If you’re looking at the stat lines, they’ll show it was 2014 when the Battle Line Rivalry officially began, when Missouri and Arkansas squared off at Faurot Field. Rewind 57 seasons though, and some might argue that the Razorbacks fired the first salvo in 1957, when they hired first-year head coach Frank Broyles away from the Tigers.

The dominos for the Broyles saga were set in motion when Coach Don Faurot retired from Missouri after a 4-5-1 season in ’56. As athletic director, he hired his successor from a list that included future Nebraska coach Bob Devaney.

“I was already 32, and thought the world had passed me by,” Broyles once told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. “I had been an assistant coach 10 years and thought maybe I’d never get a chance to be a head coach. I went after the Missouri job as hard as I could.”
Broyles liked his chances. He was a young assistant at Georgia Tech at the time and met with Faurot and the board of curators. “We were staying at the Tiger Hotel, and I said, ‘Barbara, we have to make up our minds whether I want the job, because they are going to offer it to me in the next hour,’“ Broyles said. “About 10 minutes later, the chairman of the board called and said, ‘Let’s have dinner,’ and they offered me the job.”

Broyles signed a one-year contract for $12,000 and told administrators he could work under the so-called “Missouri Plan,” limiting recruiting to in-state players. He had an immediate impact on the process, which included landing the program’s first African American player, running back Norris Stevenson. “I never figured out what exactly led me to Missouri,” Stevenson told me in a 2003 interview. “But I connected with the coaches.”

Broyles’ Tigers started the season strong before fading to 5-4-1. Still, it was the Tigers’ first winning record in five years, and Faurot was impressed enough to offer a $1,000 raise and a one-year contract extension. But that wasn’t before giving Arkansas Athletic Director John Barnhill permission to speak to his first-year coach.

You know the drill: Barnhill presented Broyles with a four-year deal and a $15,000 annual salary, a tremendous number some 50 years ago. The dominoes continued to fall in the Broyles saga, which ended well for both schools, thanks in part to “Devine” intervention. But hiring away another teams’ coach was not common thread back then.

“Frank Broyles was a terrific coach,” Kadlec said to me in an interview for Tales from the Missouri Tigers. “A lot of people held it against him because he left Missouri, but he felt he had an opportunity at Arkansas. At that time, Arkansas was a little more football-oriented than Missouri, for some reason. They were putting more money into it, and he got a tremendous salary down there.”

The decision also caught Missouri administrators off guard, something longtime beat reporter Bob Broeg wrote in his 1974 book Ol’ Mizzou: A Story of Missouri Football.

“At the time, Broyles’ decision to leave came as a shock to Missouri and as a blow to its pride,” Broeg wrote. President Elmer Ellis didn’t believe the news until Faurot and his faculty representative actually brought Broyles to Ellis’ home, Broeg said. “Faurot was embarrassed.”

The rest, as they say, is history. Broyles went on to win a national title in 1964 and coach Arkansas until ’76 when he became the school’s athletic director until his retirement only nine years ago in 2007. As for Mizzou? Coach Dan Devine soon compiled a record of 93-37-7, and the Tigers were the winningest team in the nation for the most of the ’60s.

“Both were outstanding coaches — that goes without saying,” Stevenson says. “Both were disciplinarians, as any coach generally is. But beyond that, the style of play was different. I thought Coach Broyles was much more offensive-minded. Coach Devine came in and saw our limitations as a team offensively and just went to a defensive set. He used what he had.”

If any lingering animosity existed among Faurot, Broyles and Devine, it wasn’t apparent. “Dan was a good friend,” Broyles said. “He used to kid me and say, ‘Frank, you should have stayed. Look what I did with your players.’”

Today, Broyles much more than an interesting footnote to a fledgling rivalry. But to the people who knew him, he helped paved the way for success for the next decade and beyond.

“I know Frank Broyles would have had a tremendous career here at Missouri,” Kadlec says.

Photos: Travis Smith | ContentAllStars.com

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