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:

mexicojoe asks: Which will have a bigger impact on the 2013 fb season: a healthy and 90% Henry Josey or a healthy James Franklin?

GD: If Josey is healthy, I'm saying he's 100%, but maybe you mean 90% of what he was two years ago. But I don't know if I can choose between those two options. Josey is a star, but at the same time, quarterback is by far the most important position on the field. I guess it really comes down to the backups. In other words, at which position does Missouri have guys that can step up if the one you mention ISN'T healthy or productive? I think they have more at running back as far as depth that I think would be ready to contribute next year (and even more so if they end up signing Ezekiel Elliott). So I guess I'll say Franklin would be more important...but really, it's splitting hairs.

trobone asks: how do you think the changes to text and phone call limits to recruits will affect how Mizzou and other schools recruit and contact recruits? Do you believe we will see a new arms race when it comes to hiring people who handle social media/texting/phone calls, or do you think that since non-traditional media is so abused already it won't make a difference?

GD: I think it's just another step that will speed up the process of recruiting. These kids will get inundated by the process sooner and sooner and they'll make a commitment earlier so they can shut down some of that communication. I don't really understand the rationale behind removing the limits. It almost seems like they can't police it, so they'll just make it legal. By that logic, go ahead and quit arresting people for driving drunk since everyone does it anyway, right? Yes, it's a flawed analogy, but I'm just making a point. I think removing the limits will make it harder on coaches that already get very little time off, kids that are already frequently overwhelmed by the process and guys who do what we do who already have an increasingly difficult time getting kids to answer the phone and do interviews.

mjkstl asks: Assign a mid term grade for year one in the SEC. Use whatever criteria you wish to come to a conclusion. 

GD: Not sure how to answer this. Because if you just go with on-field results, football was worse than most of us expected, basketball is close, but maybe a game behind what we thought and women's basketball is struggling. So based on that alone, it's a C-/D+ type of grade. But what everyone needs to remembers is, as Texas A&M's president said, "This is a 100-year decision." It's fun to judge this thing six months in, but you don't join the SEC and then base the results on how your first football season goes. If the recent projections that SEC schools will make at least $34 million per year at some point in the next two or three years are accurate, the decision was an A. Plus, two years ago at this time, we were all talking about whether Missouri's conference would even exist, where they would end up, etc. There is nobody wondering if the Southeastern Conference will fail to exist. It was a move that needed to be made and it remains a sound decision. For that reason, it's an A. Judging on this year alone, with only one season of one sport really finished, seems more than premature.



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