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GD: Before the season, I picked Mizzou 9-3. I picked the losses as South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. After the Wyoming game, I wasn't sold that Mizzou could get to nine, but I didn't officially come off of my prediction. After Saturday, I'm revising to 8-4. I just don't see how a team that lost to Vanderbilt is going to manage to beat Georgia or Florida. I've been wrong before and I very well may be wrong again, but it's tough to see. I definitely can't see the Tigers winning both of them, so 9-3 is now the ceiling. And after watching the team fail to show up for 75% of their road games so far (they played about two decent quarters at Wyoming), I just can't pick them to hit the most optimistic projection. So I'll go with 8-4.

As far as the rest of it, I don't think a loss to Vanderbilt OR Wyoming is shocking in itself. Upsets happen all the time. Missouri's loss last weekend wasn't even the most shocking of the day (that goes to Wisconsin). The shocking part is that they lost to Vanderbilt AND Wyoming. It happens once to a lot of teams. It doesn't happen twice to good teams. The fact that it happened twice to Missouri is an issue.

GD: If I'm forced to guess, I'd say yes. I think he'll win enough to stick around. Will he win ten or eleven games or win the SEC East? At this point, I'd say probably not. But I think he can win seven or eight most years, maybe nine or ten here and there and that's always going to be enough to keep you employed as the head football coach at Missouri. I think you also have to consider if you let him go who you're going to get. I'm not saying there's not a better coach out there for Mizzou. But is there somebody that's attainable that you are almost certain is an upgrade that is going to take the job? A big part of Missouri's problem from 1983-98 was that they never stuck with a guy long enough to give him a chance to build anything. They'd have three bad years and cut bait. And then they'd start over and do the same thing. Gary Pinkel has said over and one of the big reasons he succeeded here was that Mike Alden gave him time to succeed. If he'd have been fired after 2004, when he'd had three losing seasons in four years, or after 2005 when he snuck into a bowl game and needed a miracle comeback to win it, Missouri never goes on the run it did for the next eight or nine years. I'm not going to bore you with all the details here, but I laid out some similar programs to Missouri and how the coaches there needed time to build what Mizzou should aspire to build.

GD: If I knew, I'd tell you. And if he knew, he'd change it. It's obviously not a conscious thing. Odom said all the right things last week. He said it was going to be a close game, that Missouri would get Vanderbilt's best shot and that the Tigers weren't good enough to just roll their helmets out and beat anybody. I think he believed them. I think he said them to his players. But his players didn't seem to believe them. Why? I don't know. But it happened. After a thud in the opener, he put himself back in the crosshairs. Then he responded. Then he put himself right back there. Can Missouri respond again? Maybe. But it sure seems like there are only so many times you can play Russian roulette before you pay the ultimate price.

GD: There's no way to answer a question like this more than a few weeks in advance. I mean, last year at this time, a lot of Missouri fans were wishing they'd hired Dino Babers. Syracuse is a wreck this year and nobody's beating down the door to hire him. Who knows who the next hot coordinator or Group of Five coach is? And the guys who are on that list right now are probably going to have other jobs in a few years

GD: Top Five:

1) Clean, Old Fashioned Hate--Georgia vs Georgia Tech

2) The Iron Skillet--TCU vs SMU

3) The Civil War--Oregon vs Oregon State

4) The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party--Georgia vs Florida

5) Bedlam--Oklahoma vs Oklahoma State

Bottom Five:

1) Anything that has been changed from a war to a battle, showdown, rivalry or any other PC name

2) Battle Line Rivalry--Mizzou vs Arkansas

3) Farmageddon--Iowa State vs Kansas State

4) Friends of Coal Bowl--Marshall vs West Virginia

5) Techmo Bowl--Georgia Tech vs Virginia Tech (I have no idea if this is real, but it's listed on Wikipedia)

GD: I'm extending this to when I started watching Mizzou football which was in the late 1980s

1) 73-0 vs Texas A&M--It's not that I thought Mizzou had any chance to win this game, but it's the least competitive game I've ever seen. Mizzou wasn't on TV much back then. They were for this game. I turned it off by halftime.

2) 35-3 vs Purdue--It seemed like it could have been 73-0 if Jeff Brohm wanted it to be

3) 66-0 vs Kansas State--Larry Smith's wife was on the sideline yelling at players. Seems about right

4) 45-35 vs New Mexico--The Lobos had one player. And Hank Baskett just kept catching passes

5) 15-14 vs Kentucky--It wasn't that Missouri lost. It was that there was almost no way Missouri could lose. Been a long time since I've seen the air sucked out of a stadium like that. I'll admit there's probably some recency bias here.

GD: Oh, there have been some terrible schedules. I went back early in Gary Pinkel's tenure and there were a couple years where Mizzou only played one ranked team all season. They were playing non-cons against Arkansas State and Murray State, the Big 12 North was awful, etc. This year's home schedule has Florida, Tennessee, Ole Miss and South Carolina. Those aren't largely great teams, but they're decent games. Certainly as good as a home schedule that had Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor and Iowa State would have been.

On playing Kansas and Illinois in the same year, I think it's possible. Mizzou would have to buy out of a game. I know there's a desire on both sides to get a football series scheduled. The question is if they can do it before like 2027. You'd hope they can, but games are scheduled so far out now, it might be tough to find a time that works for both schools.

GD: We just don't see enough of what goes on to know. I've seen Barry Odom when he's angry. I've heard him deliver some stern post-practice speeches. Sure, I think his players like him, but I don't think he shies away from being hard on them either. We're not in meeting rooms or film rooms or on the plane after losses or anything. I just don't think we can say he's too easy on them with as little as we're around them.

Now, it is fair to complain about the penalties. It's been a consistent problem. And when you're racking up personal fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct in a loss like Missouri did on Saturday, something needs to change. But I don't know exactly what it is.

The bottom line is when a team loses, we're always looking for reasons. People used to get mad that Gary Pinkel wasn't animated enough on the sidelines. Now Odom's too nice. If they win, we don't care what the coach acts like. If they lose, we start looking for things he's doing wrong.

GD: It's obviously on the KU side. For seven years, with three athletic directors and three basketball coaches, Mizzou has always said, "When they're ready to play, we'll play." I think most of the credit has to go to Jeff Long. I'm not sure Bill Self is super enthusiastic about doing it, but I think he finally was convinced that enough people at Kansas wanted it that he'd sign off on it. And, yeah, I think it's possible that part of the reason he signed off on it is that he might not be in Lawrence for most of the series. Either way, I'm happy everyone involved got it done. And I think you're going to start seeing them play in other sports too.

GD: 1) The two games in 2012. That's as good as sports gets.

2) Christian Moody

3) Corey Tate

4) Anthony Peeler hangs 43 in a loss

5)

GD: I don't think it's anything super complex. I just think they individually haven't played as well as they did a year ago. I feel like Yasir Durant has still been pretty good and the best lineman. Case Cook has been a step up from what he and Kevin Pendleton were last year. But I think Missouri has gotten worse at the other three spots. two of which were returning starters. We all tend to assume that just because a guy is coming back, he's going to be better than he was last year. That doesn't always happen. Sometimes they stay the same and sometimes they get worse. That's happened this year. Maybe the shuffling of the lineup has had something to do with it, but I think it's more just individual performance that makes up the whole.

I've said since the game I thought the biggest issue was the quarterback play. Bryant just looked indecisive. He said on Tuesday he wasn't going through his reads correctly and sometimes he was scrambling when he didn't need to. Sometimes he's running too soon, sometimes it's too late. Just the decision making overall wasn't there. I'm not going to say Dooley called a great game, but when your quarterback is struggling, when the line is struggling, when the running backs are struggling, I don't know what you call that's going to work. I'd have liked to see a few more designed runs for Bryant, but it was just a day where nothing they tried worked at all. And it's tough to get too cute and try to run a trick play when even the basic plays aren't working.

GD: There's a closed scrimmage against Creighton this weekend. I can't remember if it's Saturday or Sunday. Then there's an exhibition game against Central Missouri next Friday night.

GD: How long you got? And we're just talking about other people right? Cause I feel like I'm pretty perfect.

GD: Hold on. We're firing Derek Dooley now? Might pump the brakes there. He had a bad day on a day when his offense could do nothing right. It happens. If it happens a few more times, maybe we'll talk. But the cart is WAY out in front of the horse. To answer the bigger question, of course it's on Odom if it doesn't work. Everything is. Ultimately it's his program and if his hires don't work, he's the one that pays for that.

GD: Smith's been back a handful of times. I know he was here when they unveiled the Norm Stewart statue a few years ago. Think he may have even spoken at the event. AP was a Division III coach somewhere a few years ago. We had him on the podcast once. I don't think he's around too often and I'm not sure what he's doing now.

GD: Tomato is a great soup, especially with grilled cheese. But the right answer is taco soup. I'd never had it till I met my wife. It's kind of like Mexican chili. Cooked up a pot of that on Sunday and we'll have leftovers all week.

GD: Managing the end of a Football Game to victory...art or science?

Neither. It's not rocket science. And it's not as complex as we (or they) make it out to be.

Your guilty pleasure for TV watching during the offseason?

Catfish. I can't look away. It amazes me people still fall for this stuff.

Best interview long form you've done either pre or current Power Mizzou?

Has to be the story I did behind the scenes of the SEC move. The time, the research and some of the quotes I got, that's the most proud I've been of anything I've written. I also enjoyed doing a lot of the Why They Coach stories we did over the summer.

Favorite Olympic Sport Interviewee you've had with Mizzou & non-Mizzou?

J'Den Cox was awesome. Always great to talk to.

Now that Lofton is gone, any chance you can get him to open up on how it went so wrong?

Truthfully, I've got no desire. Don't think he'd really tell me the unvarnished truth anyway.

GD: I think he's got a stronger arm and he's more athletic. Guys don't get to be Army all-Americans for nothing. That doesn't mean they always work at the next level, but the raw material is there. I don't know a lot about how he's done at practice because since he can't play this year, he's kind of off my radar. I would expect Taylor Powell to be listed as the starter going into spring football, but Robinson as the odds-on favorite to win the job. But it won't be handed to anybody.

GD: 6-0. But the refs will take the two in Lawrence, so 4-2. But realisticallly, you hope for 3-3. Win the two at home, which I've seen bad Mizzou teams do, and take one of the ones in Kansas City. Obviously tough to say where either program is going to be six years from now, but if you could go .500, that's fantastic.