Mizzou Links for July 20, 2021.

One day down…

As we stated yesterday, expect a lot of dispatches from the SEC Media Days this week. Even if it weren’t the summer — and the news wasn’t particularly slow! — the yearly event tends to swallow up everything in its orbit.

Of course, only a handful of coaches were present on Monday, and Mizzou won’t arrive until later in the week. But that didn’t stop a handful of story lines from popping up out of Hoover.

• The big message of Day One was simple: “Get vaccinated.” Commissioner Greg Sankey was effusive in his approval of the vaccine, stressing the importance of creating a healthy environment for players, coaches and the wider community.

“Let me be clear to our fans, to our coaches, to our staff members and to our student-athletes: COVID-19 vaccines are widely available,” Sankey said. “They’ve proven to be highly effective. And when people are fully vaccinated, we all have the ability to avoid serious health risks, reduce the virus’ spread, and maximize our chances of returning to a normal college football experience and to normal life.

“It’s not a political football,” he added, “and we need to do our part to support a healthy society.”

I get that this bullet point will probably get some people hot in the comments. Don’t care. Get vaccinated if you haven’t already because thinking about other people is good and not thinking about other people is bad.

• Eli Drinkwitz and the Mizzou delegation won’t have their moment until Thursday, but Drink got some early praise from the media circuit. Gene Chizik, former Auburn head coach and current SEC analyst, spoke highly of Mizzou’s head coach, referencing their past together at Auburn and expressing his admiration for Drinkwitz’s football mind.

“I love the intentionality of the way he calls games,” Chizik said. “If you look at him, and the way he calls games, he’s always going to have a little handful of trick plays that throw you off balance early in the game…

He just gets it, offensively. He gets in the flow of the games. He gets the feel. He’s a really, really talented play-caller. I like the play designs. I like the strain he puts on the defense. I think you are going to see him continue to improve…”

Chizik also expressed some concern over Steve Wilks’ transition to the NCAA from the NFL, stating that the week-to-week transition is a tough learning curve.

• Trajan Jeffcoat not only surprised everyone by making an unexpected return to the Mizzou Football roster last season, he proceeded to then put up a First Team All SEC caliber campaign. The second-leading sack producer from 2020 was named to the Bednarik Award Watch List on Monday, naming him as one of 90 players who could potentially earn the award for best defensive player in the country.

Jeffcoat was a first-team all-Southeastern Conference selection last season. In 2020, he garnered six sacks, 18 tackles, seven quarterback hurries and one forced fumble.

Jeffcoat’s six sacks ranked second in the SEC and were the most by a Tiger defensive end since Charles Harris recorded nine in 2016. Last year, Jeffcoat produced a sack in six of Missouri’s 10 games.

To the links.

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Yesterday at Rock M

• In which Nate, BK and I examine the QB and RB positions, asking how the starters will progress and who will back them up

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More Links:

• The coming Nike EYBL Peach Jam will feature at least one Mizzou commit and several others that Cuonzo Martin and Co. are trying to bring to Columbia.
• Aijha Blackwell bringing the energy that we love. to. see.

• Eli Drinkwitz took his QBs out for a little golf competition on Monday and, to be honest, it sounds like a very Eli Drinkwitz thing to do.

From the looks of it, freshman preferred walk-on Tommy Lock (former Lee’s Summit QB and Drew Lock’s cousin) ended up winning the green jacket. He might need to get it tailored based on the look of things.

• In recruiting news, Mizzou Baseball picked up a recruit out of the Midwest circuit yesterday.
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