Football season is almost here and Tiger fans are ready to Drink Up! There's only one place to get set for Mizzou game day every week this season. Macadoodles does tailgating like nobody else. Get your crew ready to watch the Tigers take on the SEC in Eli Drinkwitz's first full season with a stop at Macadoodles on your way to Faurot Field. Whether it's beer, wine or spirits you're looking for, Macadoodles will make your tailgate the pre-game place to be in Columbia this season. Who does tailgating like nobody else? Macadoodles does.
Every week, PowerMizzou.com publisher Gabe DeArmond answers questions from Tiger fans in the mailbag. This format allows for a more expansive answer than a message board post. Keep your eye out each week to submit your question for the mailbag or send them to powermizzou@gmail.com. On to this week's inquiries.
MIZ25! asks: Who has a worse rush defense at their respective levels, Chiefs or Mizzou?
GD: I've got to go Chiefs. I've seen Mizzou make a few good plays against the run. I've seen the Chiefs make maybe two. Every single time Cleveland or Baltimore handed the ball off, you knew the worst they were going to do was get four yards. The Chiefs have the worst run defense I've seen considering that they are supposed to be a professional football team. I can give you some reasons to hope Mizzou can improve. I watch the Chiefs play and I really can't see any reason to expect it to get better unless Willie Gay comes back and is an all-pro.
TigerinCincy asks: I think this year for Mizzou is showing why FB takes so much longer to turn around (potentially) than BB. You cannot expected even very talented freshman to carry the team. That said, how many years do you expect Drink will need to get back to Pinkel's level of success?I'm going to be greedy with a second question: Why is Pittman apparently having more success at Arkie in Year 2 than Drink at Mizzou? Is it merely a point how much talent was on the roster each coach inherited?
GD: On the first question, I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but the odds are Drinkwitz never reaches Pinkel's level of success. I think Missouri fans sometimes say "if he can just be what Pinkel was" without realizing how good Pinkel was. He has five of the six ten-win seasons in school history. He won at least a share of a division title five times. And even he didn't get to that level until his seventh season. So how long will Drinkwitz take? The better question is does he ever get there?
As far as Pittman having more success, is he? He won a big non-conference game against Texas and I don't mean to minimize that. But are we ready to say three weeks in he's having more success than Drinkwitz? They're 3-0 and that's great, but they've really won one game that there was any possible way they were going to lose. The next four games are against ranked teams and it's not hard to see 3-0 becoming 3-4 real quick. And if that's the case, is anyone saying he's having more success than Drinkwitz? None of this is to say Pittman isn't doing a good job. He's been quite a bit more successful than I expected him to be. But handing out awards three weeks into the season is silly.
