GD: I think it will temporarily. I mean, if you've got the balls to cheat now, nothing's ever going to change that. But it won't last. I mean, you think the Olympics and pro sports are completely void of performance enhancing drugs? Of course not. They found a way to test for some, so the next step is for people to find one they can't test for yet. The cheaters got caught and now they're going to find new ways to get around the rules. It's just a fact. To pretend everyone is going to play by the rules forever now is naive and crazy. There will still be some cheating. I think it will be quite a bit less in the immediate future, but gradually, things will start happening again.

GD: I definitely think it's possible. I don't have any particular person in mind right now, but sure, it's on the table. Obviously there are eight games left to go and it's a little bit too soon to forecast what's going to happen and what the situation will be two months from now, but it would be silly to say that there's no way the staff changes. And I think it could be either by coaches choosing to leave or by Odom choosing to get rid of coaches on his own.

GD: I don't have numbers on that, but it would almost have to be some time since they moved into Mizzou Arena because it holds 2,000 more fans than the Hearnes Center did. The highest average attendance in that time frame was in 2012-13 at 11,996. Now, that is actual butts in seats, so it doesn't necessarily reflect overall season ticket sales as there were plenty of people who had tickets they didn't use for certain games. But I'd guess it was around that number. It's hard to gauge going back to the Hearnes Center days because Missouri announced 13,300 for pretty much every game, no matter how many empty seats there were. The number this year should be around 12,000, I think, which would likely set a record.

GD: It's the free board open to anyone with a Rivals account to post. Some Rivals sites have very active free boards. We never have. I don't really look at it, unless somebody tells me there is spam over there then I go delete it.

GD: They're not winning at Georgia. They'll lose at least one more for sure, even if they did a 180 during the bye week. So I guess the best case I could see is 7-5, even though I have a really hard time seeing that as possible at this point.

Worst case is 1-11. There's no way any rational human can look at Missouri's schedule and say "I know they'll win that one."

If I had to guess, I'd peg them 4-8. I think they beat UCONN and Idaho. And I think they find one more win along the way.

Your last question has no answer. It's not any one thing. Is it talent? Yes. Coaching? Yes. Chemistry? Yes. Turnovers, penalties, focus, discipline, confidence? Yes. It's all of them. There's not one thing that I look at and say "If you just change this, they'd be a lot better." It pretty much all has to change.

GD: Other than the decommitment of La'Dedric Jackson last week, we haven't heard any negatives so far. Missouri had some visitors in town for the Auburn game and, as they always are, the reviews were positive. If losing teams never landed any good players, then losing teams would just be losing teams forever and nothing really changed. I'm not saying the record is no factor with kids. Of course it is, and with some more than others. But you can sell early playing time, you can sell the relationship with the coaches and players, all kinds of things. But so far, we haven't heard any big negatives. If they don't start winning, I would assume we will. I think the biggest impact right now is that Missouri's just not really getting any commitments. A lot of guys are probably out there waiting to see if Mizzou does indeed start playing better before they jump on board.

GD: I don't know about a wave, but the situation would certainly get tenuous with another couple losses. More than just losses, I think it would be important how they played. Do they take Kentucky to the wire? Do they represent themselves well at Georgia? Or do they get blown out in two games that are over before halftime? If it's the last option, the cries for Odom's job are going to be deafening. If it's the former, there would be a little more hope that things are trending in the right direction and the Tigers could salvage something out of the second half of the season.

GD: I would assume the vast majority of kids who are already committed somewhere will. If you're committed to me and you tell me you're not signing in December, then I assume you're not really committed and you're looking for a better option. So I go out and recruit somebody to take your spot. I think over time the December signing period will become the bigger one.

The most interesting part of this to me is what it does to coaching changes. First of all, it's not going to move coaching changes to mid-season. There's no advantage to that. You still can't hire somebody until after the year in 95% (or more) of these cases. So what's the edge? In fact, it might hurt you in that if you fire a coach six games into the season, you give every other program in America six free weeks to terrorize your commitment list while you have no coach and can't even give kids any indication of who the next coach will be.

So teams that are looking to fire a coach are largely losing teams. They're going to finish the season the last weekend of November. That gives you three weeks before the early signing period. Let's say you fire your coach the day after the final game. That gives you about 20 days to find conduct a search, hire a coach and get him on the road to re-recruit the kids he wants to keep (some time in here he has to evaluate the current commits and see if he wants them too). How's that going to work?

If a school wants to fire its coach, I think it has to assume it's going to sign nobody in December. And then you've got two months to get a complete recruiting class. But it's not like it used to be. For example, when Barry Odom took over, he took guys like Micah Wilson and Damarea Crockett from Boise State. This year, you can't recruit those guys. They'll almost certainly already be signed.

This isn't a worry for a top-tier program like Alabama or Oklahoma (not that those schools are firing coaches anytime soon). But it could be a major problem for a mid-level school like Mizzou. If you're firing your coach, your team isn't in the greatest situation anyway. Then you're telling a new coach, come in and recruit an entire class in eight weeks...but most of the guys you want to recruit are already off the board. So the first class is going to be worse than the first class for a coach has been in the past. So that sets you back another year. Honestly, I think the biggest impact of the early signing period could be how it plays on the decision of whether to fire a coach and how long it takes to rebuild a program. For the reasons I listed above, I think it adds at least a year--and maybe two--to the rebuilding time frame for the vast majority of schools in the country.

GD: It's possible. But I don't think it's a foregone conclusion. Missouri offered James Foster early and has made him a priority from day one. I think they need to win some games and show some progress, but I think the defeatist attitude of the message board is awfully premature.

GD: Not sure at this point. I know we'll get plenty of media opportunities, but not sure if we'll get a chance to go over and actually watch them practice. We have at times in the past at least for a portion of it. But it's not really a situation where you're going to go every day and do practice reports like you do with football.

GD: Earlier I predicted four. I assume most would predict fewer than that. So I'll set it at 3.5. Basketball, there are 31 regular season games. So I'll set the over under for the regular season at 22.5. I think that's a pretty fair number. I'm forecasting 10-3/11-2 in the non-conference schedule and then 12-6 in the SEC. So that would put them right on the number at 22-9 or 23-8. I think that's about right.

Going into the postseason, let's give them three wins between the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, but add one on to the over under. So, I'd set the total for the season at 26.5. I think that's a pretty tough number on which to pick a side.

GD: Not really more than I did on the board. He broke a team rule. When presented with the consequences for that, he didn't react well. He could have stayed on the team initially from what I have been told. It was the reaction that caused his departure. Beyond that, I don't see a need to air dirty laundry.

GD: I believe Missouri had three early enrollees in the 2017 signing class, which means they could count three guys back to last year and sign up to 28 this year. I'd be surprised if they got that high because I don't think they'll have the room, but it's possible.

As far as transfers, I've set the over/under at 9.5 previously. I think it will be around there.

On your final question, yes, defensive end is most definitely a need. Trajan Jeffcoat visited last weekend and he's a priority. Obviously Ronnie Perkins is still out there. The Tigers will take at least two more I think if they're the right guys.

GD: I'll know on Saturday. I understand why someone would think that. And the way they've played the last two weeks, I'll say it's possible. But I want to see Saturday after the bye week first. If they come out and get blitzed in the first quarter at Lexington, I think it's a yes. It's most definitely not early anymore. They were competitive for two-and-a-half quarters against South Carolina and just made too many mistakes. They were never competitive against Purdue, but maybe you give them one mulligan. Auburn is a good team, but I'm not sure if they're quite as good as Missouri made them look. Kentucky is a decent team. They've certainly looked better than Missouri. But they've played five games and all have been close. None has been decided by more than ten points. If the Wildcats blow the Tigers out of the building in the first half, then, yeah, it's fair to say he's lost the team I think.

GD: I think they'll be in the high teens or low 20's. It won't shock me if they're a spot or two outside the rankings. I'm far more interested to see where they're at come the start of conference play in January. Pre-season polls are dumb. Especially when we're talking about a team that features so many guys who we've never seen play.