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Transcript

Eli ±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýGood morning, everyone, and welcome to the brand new world of college sports. The House settlement has been approved, but the billable hours don't stop here! We've got lots to chat about over the next few hours. 

Today's chat will probably wind up being another that sees me disappear for a bit during the middle of it. Laird Veatch is holding a press conference today to talk about Mizzou's revenue sharing plans with, I hope, some more detail now that the settlement is approved. So while I'll have to take a break from answering questions in an hour or so, I'll come back with a story for y'all on what he says today. I've got lots of questions for him. But in the meantime, let's take yours!

Senior scramble: I saw the list of recruits coach Harper is trying to get. She is going against the top level programs. Do you think Mizzou is willing to pay to get a couple of these players. On the football front , looking at the possible huge improvement of Auburn, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Mizzou being picked 12th in the SEC and projected to win 3 SEC games I sure hope we have a better than average offense. Thanks for the chat

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýI admit to not following women's basketball recruiting especially closely, but the expectation has been that Harper will go in on the big recruits and compete for them. If Mizzou is going to become a team that makes the NCAA Tournament in women's hoops, that's just what needs to happen. She theoretically has more money to use in that realm, and she certainly has some name recognition. I don't know what her philosophy is on setting aside cash for incoming freshmen — this is the production vs. potential question that football answered resoundingly in December — but she's at least, like you said, in the mix.

Given that the line for Mizzou is 7.5 wins and models like ESPN's FPI have the projected total at 6.9, don't be surprised if folks only pick the Tigers to win three or four SEC games. With 3 "show up and you ought to win" noncons and a winnable game against Kansas, that should be four right there. In the algorithms'/sportsbooks' eyes, the debate would then be three or four wins in SEC play. As we talked about last week, that kind of estimate seems to account for uncertainty with the Missouri offense and theoretical improvement, as you mention, for a lot of other teams. 

Tom O: As I reflect on Missouri football record of 10 wins most of them in conference were by slim margins. In fact the OU game was won by the defense at the end of the game. This win was against a OU team that was decimated by injuries and we barely won. Do you think we have improved enough to have kept up with OU?

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýOver the last two years, Mizzou is 10-1 in one-score games. The only loss there is the South Carolina one in 2024. It's a point of pride for the program — "finding a way" and all that. Keep in mind that Mizzou trotted out Drew Pyne against the Sooners for that game with Cook hurt. There were a lot of injuries all around, and that was a bad game from a viewership standpoint until the final three minutes provided 60 minutes' worth of action. 

Oklahoma is an interesting barometer for Mizzou. The Sooners certainly did well to bring in the QB-coordinator tandem of Mateer and Arbuckle from Washington State. That plus some generalized healthiness should lead to improvement, right? But then you look at OU's schedule... Michigan, Auburn, Texas, at South Carolina, Ole Miss, at Tennessee, at Alabama, Missouri, LSU. That's the toughest slate in the country, in my opinion. (And I think metrics would agree.) OU could be a decent team and go only 6-6 there. Mizzou could be a bad team and against its schedule go 6-6. Good thing these teams play each other to settle the matter!

¸é³Ü²õ²õ:ÌýGood morning, Eli. No question here. Just wanted to compliment you for your coverage on revenue sharing in college sports and how it might affect Mizzou. It's such a complicated issue for the average college sports fan, and such a change in direction from what most of us grew up with. Revenue sharing, NIL's, etc. It's really a mess.

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýThanks, Russ, I really appreciate that. I've dedicated a lot of time over the last few months to trying to understand this as best I can so that I can apply it to Mizzou and relay the landscape to you all. I know it's confusing and I don't pretend to have perfect knowledge of it in the first place. I just hope I'm able to clear the muddy waters from a dark brown to a translucent beige. 

senior scramble: I read where the new agreement where schools can pay there athletes now, there will be a lot less portal movement in the power 5 conferences because of the money the players will be getting from the college, especially football and mens basketball.

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýI've heard that theory, but I've also heard a lot of theories on what the House settlement will do. Nobody really knows what this is going to look like. The market, from a spending standpoint, will probably contract. Maybe that keeps athletes in place more? I'm still skeptical of portal activity really coming down when players are constantly looking for more money or playing time. But hey, if this reins that in, I think we'd all take it. 

Fly Man: Good morning Eli! Are you ready to go game by game on the football schedule and announce W, L or draw?

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýGive me one more month before I go game-by-game. For now, I'll give you the games in three tiers.

Win or there's a problem: Central Arkansas, Louisiana, UMass, Mississippi State.

Go 3-2 in these: Kansas, South Carolina, at Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, at Arkansas

Find one win: Alabama, at Auburn, at Oklahoma

That's a recipe for eight wins. Underachieve by one and it's seven. Snag another win and it's nine. Of course, I do see a path to 10. I reserve the right to change these, but that's how I see the games right now.

´³±á´³:ÌýEli, what do you consider to be the best NCAA Football preseason magazine for coverage of SEC football? I used to consider Sporting News SEC to be the best, but I don’t think that’s published anymore.

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýWell, I'm biased here because I write the Mizzou section for it, but I always pick up the Lindy's national and SEC versions. I just got my copy of the national last week and I assume the SEC one will come out soon. I carry them around with me to read about a team or two when I have some down time between now and awards voting/media days in July. 

°Õ±ð±ð:ÌýI keep hearing we need Congress to take action such as legislation to fix the ills of college football and the mess they’re created with the money and the transfer with no guard rails. What would it take do you think for Congress to act?

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýMoney? Lobbying? Some sort of external pressure? There's a Congressional hearing on NIL and college sports happening right now on Capitol Hill, and there's been a bill introduced. I don't know how likely it's going to be to pass, but there wasn't great attendance from committee members at this morning's hearings. Given the state of things, devoting energy to reforming college sports is probably a tough sell right now in DC. (That's not a political statement — Congress always has lots of things we all think it should or could be doing.) We all think it's important, and there are arguments for why it is. But I still think the courts have the power over college sports for a good while yet.

Fly Man: Have you had a chance to ask Coach Harper why she has signed so many guards for next year? Thanks!

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýI have not, but that struck me, too, when looking through the roster. Perhaps we'll get to chat with her soon. 

³¢³Ü:ÌýThe House settlement stuff is fascinating. So schools are allowed to pay their athletes directly up to $20.5M, do you have any sense as to how Mizzou will allocate those dollars across football in basketball? 70/30? 80/20?

I'm really interested to see how this will shake out at traditional Basketball schools like Duke, UNC, Kansas...etc. Will these allocations be made public?

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýIt's very fascinating. The No. 1 thing I want to get from today's presser for you all is what Mizzou's breakdown will be. Given that the athletic department is asking more of y'all as fans (and maybe some of you as donors), it seems right that they would at a minimum disclose where your money will be going. But we'll see.

The conventional thinking is that most schools will go with 75% to football, 15% to men's basketball, 5% to women's basketball and the remaining 5% to the few other sports they want to use rev share on. I'd be surprised if Missouri does anything wildly different.

As you point out, the basketball blue bloods will be really interesting to examine. Big East-type schools which don't sponsor football can offer more in rev share than some power conference programs that also have to fund football. That's probably where the third-party NIL deals on top of all this come in.

I'm also interested in what that final 5% looks like at various schools, including MU. Do you try to sustain this gymnastics success? Give softball the tools to rebuild? Sink that into a baseball program that probably needs even more to compete? Prioritize wrestling and volleyball, which have also been successful? There's a finite amount of rev share money now, which makes this so thought-provoking — and really important to get the breakdown on the record, I think. 

¶Ù°ä³Ò:ÌýIt seems to be that this is a Title IX lawsuit just waiting to happen, and probably should be. That legislation deals only with opportunity and doesn't contextualize via "revenues," so I think the suits, when they happen, will get traction. It'll be hard to justify that lopsided share of money going to male athletes as not somehow denying opportunity, which can be loosely defined, to the women. As for the outcome, I have no idea.

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýThose appeals/lawsuits will certainly come. Front Office Sports has already reported one such group coming together. I sure don't have the expertise to say whether it'll lead to anything or stop revenue sharing, but I, like you, thought immediately that such legal challenges would come. My other guess is that there will be some legal pushback on the NIL clearinghouse and process from a price-fixing standpoint. Again, I don't know what will come of it, but it sure seems like something that would draw a lawsuit in my eyes (and the eyes of other people smarter than me.)

´³´Ç³ó²Ô³¢:ÌýGood afternoon-In my opinion, on the surface for 25/26 season, Coach is at risk putting a high expectation level that both Botang and Burns will be significant contributors in PT and scoring. What's your vibe on their abilities to deliver? Please advise.

±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ÌýSure, there's some risk/pressure. If the two freshmen aren't going to contribute, that leaves 12 players on the roster. Boateng and Burns should both probably be in the rotation — as any second-year player should be. Do they need to be startling lineup caliber? I don't think so. Maybe not even top 7 guys. If they are, that's a nice bonus for Mizzou, but there are players ahead of both in terms of expectations and pressure. Boateng and Burns need to be capable rotation players who'd ideally show flashes of more for even later on in their careers. 

I haven't been by a summer practice yet and probably won't for several weeks, so I can't tell you what they're looking like now. We didn't see much of Boateng during the meaningful part of last season to get a great read on him. We saw nothing of Burns. They're both still unknowns to a pretty large degree. 

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