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GD: First off, I have about as high an opinion of Snyder as anyone. I think he's a top ten all time head coach and I can make the argument he's the best coach in college football history (He's the only guy that's EVER won at K-State. Other guys have done it where Saban, Meyer, Paterno, etc have done it. No one else has ever consistently won at Kansas State).

So, that said, he won one conference title at K-State, so he'd probably have won at least one at Mizzou. Would he have won a national title? Who knows? And I agree with your assessment. Snyder and Pinkel had similar MO's, but I don't think anybody can deny Snyder will go down as a better coach than Pinkel (no shame in that and it isn't an insult to GP). I think Pinkel was a top 20 coach in college football (at the time he coached, not necessarily all time). I think Snyder is top five.

GD: I don't have to make a prediction until at least Thursday on the podcast and I'm going to take every second of it. I think if these teams play ten times, neither one of them wins more than six. It all depends on how they play that day. As I type this, if I had to pick, I'd pick South Carolina. But on Monday, I was going to pick Mizzou. By tomorrow, it might be different. I think it's a complete toss-up game. I know that Mizzou fans aren't feeling good and most would pick South Carolina without thinking twice, but I've seen enough college football to know that the way you play one Saturday just doesn't have a ton of carryover to the way you play the next Saturday. It's what makes it so fun to follow.

GD: Honestly, I'm mildly surprised he's still the coach today. When your regents start trying to fire you on Facebook, that's not a real vote of confidence. Expectations in College Station are unreasonably high at most times. When you're up 44-10, they're actually just reasonably high. You should win that game. Sumlin has an established pattern of collapsing in the second half (of games and seasons). The statute of limitations on the Manziel era seems to have run out. If I were a betting man, as of today, I'd put my money on the Aggies looking for a new coach after the season (and having a ridiculously pie-in-the-sky list of who they can hire).

GD: You mean besides regents ranting on Facebook about firing the coach? It depends on the situation. There's no one answer. Recruiting erodes, bad character kids come in, you lose, people within the organization start publicly complaining. Just depends on where you're at and each situation what happens first. I don't think there's anything universal you can point to and say "When this happens, you're done."

GD: The overall record doesn't matter. Only the league record does. So what you're asking is whether the division winner will be 5-3 in the league and win a tiebreaker. I don't think so. I think somebody gets to 6-2 in the league. If I had to guess who that is, I'd guess Georgia. I still think they're the best team.

The SEC East this week is basically where every fanbase points to the flaws of all the other teams as the biggest reason they can win it. And honestly, they're not wrong. I'm not sure there's any team of the seven that I would say can't win it right now.

Vandy had a good showing in week one, so they feel good. Mizzou scored eleventy billion points so Tiger fans will convince themselves they can score enough on anybody to win. Tennessee and South Carolina had the two best week one wins and Vol fans, well, they always think they can win. Kentucky, Georgia and Florida all had some traction as top two teams in the division in the pre-season. It's really wide open, but I'd still say UGA is the best of the bunch and finds a way to go 6-2.

GD: Over or under 43? I'll go under. I mean, 43 is a BIG number. And, really, it comes down to this: I just can't believe they're as bad as they looked in week one. Maybe they are and I'll look stupid. If they give up an average of 43 a game, they probably won't win a game in the league and there will be some real uncomfortable conversations about the future of the coaching staff. But I just can't see them being that bad. I know it seems terrible right now. And on Saturday it absolutely was terrible. I don't think Missouri has the most talent in the country on defense or anything, but they've got more than to give up 43 to a mediocre FCS team. They'll have some weeks where they get some turnovers, some weeks where they play well. Exactly one team in the country gave up 43 points per game or more last year (it was Texas Tech). So, no, I don't think Missouri is going to be the worst defense in the country in the last two years.

GD: It's the nature of message boards and fan sites. Sites like ours cater to the die hards. You guys know who the third-string linebacker is and you watch games over and over and you just care more than most people. I bet half the fans in the stadium last week left saying "Hey, we scored 72 points and we won by 29. Good start!" Those who pay more attention and care more take the approach of "Okay, that was good enough, but let's talk about the problems that could hurt us down the road." And if you take that approach, the only conclusion you can draw is "If they play that way 11 more times on defense, they won't win another game."

In addition, people who are unhappy are a lot more likely to vocalize their opinions than people who are happy. Listen to talk radio. Nobody takes the time to call in and say "Hey, I think you're doing a great job and all these rainbows and unicorns are awesome!" But plenty of people take the time to call and complain. In addition, I think there's a tendency among fans these days to be the person that looks smart by finding some issue no one else has thought about or by diagnosing some major problem that will fix things.

PM isn't any more negative than the vast majority of message boards. I will say, though, that Missouri fans have a bit of a self-image problem. Many fanbases will believe in their team until there's simply no way to do so anymore. In my experience, most Mizzou fans will expect the worst until the team proves to them that they shouldn't. And last Saturday didn't do anything to prove that.

GD: Kim English is already in coaching, so I can't say him. Chase Daniel would make a heck of a coach. So would DeMarre Carroll if that's something he'd want to do down the road, I think.

GD: I almost always have to take the lead. At some point, I've got to believe your best chance in that scenario is to keep the other team from driving 95 yards. So I'd still take that. But lining up for a 35-yard field goal would be pretty good odds on most teams too. I just need to see Tucker McCann make a few more of them before that would be the choice. Having to go 80 yards in two minutes is my last choice every time unless Tom Brady is my quarterback.

GD: As written in my post-game notebook, Larry Rountree III, Chris Turner, Jamal Brooks, Adam Sparks, Jordan Ulmer, Aubrey Miller, Joshuah Bledsoe, Kobie Whiteside and Tyree Gillespie all played.

GD: I think he'll get offers after this year, especially if Missouri's offense is close to as good as it looked on Saturday. And, yes, I think he'll be interested. Whether he takes one would really come down to two things: How good a job is he offered? You don't take one just to take one. It needs to be the right one. And, second, does he think if he comes back for another year as OC here with Drew Lock in his senior season, Damarea Crockett, Larry Rountree, Dimetrios Mason, Johnathon Johnson, Kendall Blanton and Albert Okwuegbunam all back that he can have an even better offense and get better offers following the 2018 season?

GD: We know Michael Thompson, Daniel Parker Jr., and Nathaniel Peat were here. We talked to Parker. Haven't been able to catch up with the other two yet. There were probably others, but those were the big names.

GD: It's possible. I can't pretend to have any idea how the game will go (I picked Dimetrios Mason as the MVP before last week and he had one catch). But it does lead to a bigger point, which is this: Who do you key on against this offense? Do you do everything to stop Damarea Crockett and take your chances with the passing game? Do you drop more guys into coverage to slow down Lock and his receivers and let Crockett have room to run? Missouri has a lot of weapons. It looks like a really good offense. If I had to choose, I'd try to take Crockett away and make the passing game beat me simply because more negatives can happen when you throw than when you run as a general rule.

The recipe to stop Mizzou is easy to diagnose, but hard to execute. You need elite corners that can take Lock's receivers out of the game one-on-one and allow you to dedicate seven guys or more to stopping Crockett. LSU and Florida had that last year. Most teams don't.

GD: Before 2012, we could actually see these kids practice, so we weren't relying on "buzz" and rumor as much. We saw it. Danario Alexander, Aldon Smith, Jeremy Maclin were all guys that you could see in camp were really good players. This year, I'd say Chris Turner, Larry Rountree III and Jordan Ulmer are the guys I heard the most about. Throw Larry Borom and Kobie Whiteside in there too. As far as the best career, I've got no idea on that right now, but those were the names I heard the most often from people in August.

GD: He is. He won't play this year due to the leg injury, but he's on the team.

GD: My assessment of Odom hasn't changed. He's a guy that I think will be a successful head coach. But I'm not sure yet it will be at Missouri. I don't think he was completely ready for the job last year. If he can win seven this year, I like what I've seen as far as recruiting and evaluation and I think he'll succeed here. But he just has to win enough games in the next two years to get that chance. If he goes 5-7 the next two years, I don't think we'll get the chance to find out.

As far as Cross, he contributes on defense as Odom continues to call it a group effort, but realistically, I think he's a linebackers coach making 600K who has some input on the defense. And, yes, that's a whole lot of money for a linebackers coach. I wouldn't be at all shocked if this was his last year here.

GD: I don't think they ever announced it at the game, but the box score lists it as 50,131.

GD: I want the credit I am due for not making a crack about Missouri spending practice time to coach stripping. The players can go to Regina's to learn about that. Oh, wait, there goes my credit.

Anyway, it wasn't something I specifically noticed. Is it possible? Absolutely. But watching that game I didn't think they were trying to strip the ball over making the tackle. I just thought they were failing to make the tackle. Perhaps I'm incorrect. And if so, that needs to be stressed this week: Get the guy down first. If you can take the ball away on the way down, that's a bonus. But you have to make sure you tackle him first.

GD: I say this completely seriously and not as a copout. I would start Rashad Brandon and the ten guys who have the best four days of practice between the last game and the next one. On Sunday night, I would have said before practice that Brandon played well and earned a starting spot. And every other job is open. Every. One. Regardless of who you are. Nobody played well enough to be guaranteed a spot.

GD: This is the human side of it that we don't usually think about. When a coach loses his job, it impacts dozens of people. From assistants to support staff to GAs to interns. And it's a big reason I never root for people to lose their jobs. Using the example above, Kevin Sumlin and his $5 million salary will be fine if he's unemployed next year. But what about his recruiting director? His offensive analyst? His administrative assistant? You get the point.

Anyway, I think the top two guys Odom would want to keep would be Josh Heupel and Glen Elarbee. Those guys have been phenomenal and with Odom being a defensive guy, they're on the other side of the ball handling things. I'd put Cornell Ford and Andy Hill next, along with Brick Haley, mainly because you don't want to have a fourth defensive line coach in 18 months. After that, right now, all the other defensive assistants are kind of on the same level.

GD: They are stupid. They are based on year-old info, voted on by people that can't possibly know any in-depth information about more than four or five of the 25 teams they vote for. Polls should not exist until every team in the country has played at least one conference game. The first poll of the season should come out on October 1st.

But that's not realistic. They generate content and conversation and interest in the game, so they'll continue. They're recruiting rankings...with less quantifiable information. But can you imagine the outcry if there were no preseason poll? Many of the same people who bitch about hating them and how dumb they are would be bitching that they didn't exist to bitch about.

GD: Maybe. I don't have enough data to decide that yet. I'll know a lot more after this week. I'll have enough info to decide how many problems there are and what they are by the end of September. I get that we're all amateur or professional overreactors, but I want to see at least another game before I make concrete statements.

Side note, though: If the previous staff emphasized speed and the older players were the fastest guys on the team, wouldn't they be playing more? Instead we've got 13 newcomers on the field. Chris Turner is the fastest defensive end on the team. I'd be willing to be Joshuah Bledsoe and Aubrey Miller are in the top two or three linebackers speed-wise. So, I guess the defense may be too slow, I don't know. But I don't buy it's because the previous staff emphasized speed more than this one does.

GD: Barry Odom is. He hasn't flat out said it. I assume that's designed not to make Cross look bad. But Odom said a few times "I made some calls I'd take back." He's the ultimate man in charge. But, really, that's the case on offense too. You're the head coach. You're in charge of everything. If something doesn't work, you take the heat.

GD: Approximately 65,000. Next season, when there are no seats there, it will be approximately 61,000.

GD: Well, today, I believe he is speaking to the Tiger Club in St. Louis. Maybe having a burger at Llewellyn's. With Carte'Are Gordon, it appears that he was in Columbia last weekend at least hanging out with Michael Porter Jr. That's according to screenshots of his Snapchat account. What we can't determine is if he was in town simply to hang out with MPJ or whether it was a recruiting trip where the coaches were involved. Nobody's talking on that. We've tried to reach the kid with no luck. Nobody around Mizzou is talking about it. My takeaway is this: Missouri is a factor for Gordon, but nobody wants it advertised. It will be an interesting couple of months.

With Torrence Watson, sorry to be mysterious, but we need to let this play out for a few weeks and see who pursues him heavily. I'm not sure if Mizzou will or not as of today.

GD: If the defensive doesn't improve over week one, Missouri's going to be 3-9 or worse and Odom won't have to worry about replacing anybody because he'll be replaced. But, yes, if they don't see significant improvement on defense, I think all of the defensive assistants are going to have some nervous moments after the end of the season. That said, there are 11 games to play. Let's not go firing anyone just yet.

GD: Yes, again, Cross makes too much money to just coach linebackers. No doubt. But you don't fire an assistant after week one. You almost never do it mid-season. The decision to keep Cross was made last winter and so he's going to be here all year, regardless of what his role is or how much money he makes. Then we'll get to this offseason and that decision will be made again. But it won't be made before then.