Each Wednesday, PowerMizzou.com publisher Gabe DeArmond will answer questions from subscribers in our Tiger Mailbag. This feature will allow for longer, more in-depth answers than you may get on the message board on a daily basis. To have your question in next week's mailbag, send an email to Gabe at powermizzou@gmail.com. On to this week's inquiries:

genevasper@sbcglobal.net asks: Besides DT, what are the obvious needs for the 2013 football class? With MU seeming to strike out on several DT offers, who do you think MU adds to the current class?

GD: They had to get a quarterback or two and they did. They still need safety help. They have a couple guys who could play there, but a juco kid at the position or a high school guy who could come in and play right away are definite possibilities. Defensive tackle is most certainly still a need. Missouri needs one and, honestly, probably more than that. As far as the specific guys, I really don't know right now.

ZouFan27 asks: With the loss of Maliek Collins and Ben Bradley, does this mean that MU has lost it's clout to pull in the big recruits (at least in it's own backyard)?  Is the shift to the SEC (and away for Texas) the cause for our recruiting woes? 

GD: They haven't lost their clout. They got Chase Abbington, who many think is the best player in the state. They have quite a few guys who are more highly regarded than Collins in the state. The struggles right now probably have a decent amount to do with a lackluster first season and, to some extent, the rampant speculation about how long Gary Pinkel will be around. Fair or not, it's ammo that is used on the recruiting trail. For talking about shifting away from Texas, Mizzou still has four commitments from the Lone Star State.

mugamer asks: Bowl games are some of the most intriguing games played each year because of the matching of conference against conference.  Much has been made of LSU and Florida's losses as well as UGA's "struggle" with a Nebraska team that was blown out by a mediocre Wisconsin team and of course South Carolina's near miss against Michigan.  Does the SEC's performace this year in their 9 bowls help or hinder the perception that the SEC is truly the best conference in the country.

GD: All depends on your point of view. SEC fans will crow about winning a seventh straight national title and say that's proof the SEC is far better than the other leagues. Non-SEC fans will point to some of the losses and say that it shows other leagues are catching up. But the SEC's top four teams won their games. Three of them did so convincingly. So I'd say the best the SEC has to offer is still quite clearly better than the best any other league can offer. I don't put a ton of weight on individual bowl games because there are just too many variables. But the simple fact is that I don't know how you could make a sensible argument that the SEC isn't the best league in America.

MoDude21 asks: With the apparent lack of a suitable backup to Phil Pressey at this point how do you think Mizzou will do in the SEC? How far can they go in the Tourney without a serviceable back up Pressey? 

GD: If Pressey stays healthy, they're fine. He's in great shape. Haith manages him well, getting him an extra minute or two of rest before TV timeouts. He can go 38 minutes a game in the games Missouri needs him to. When they're winning big, Haith has to make sure to find a way to limit Phil to 30 minutes. I liked what I saw from Jabari Brown helping out handling the ball against Bama. That said, if he goes down, Missouri's in deep, deep trouble. And he CANNOT get in foul trouble in the tournament. Because if he does, Missouri can lose to anybody.



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