It's Monday morning, so it's time for me to let you all know what's been on my mind the past week. It's going to be a lot of transfer talk today.
Football Thoughts
1. What do last week's transfers mean?
Different things at different positions.
For Drew Pyne, it means he wasn’t involved in the quarterback competition and was at best QB3 with two guys in front of him who have the same amount of eligibility left as he does. Now, he has a chance to follow the Connor Bazelak route and possibly put up some big numbers at Bowling Green.
For Jahkai Lang, it means even though he was third among the pass rushers last year with the guy in first leaving for the NFL, he got recruited over in the portal and was going to drop in the rotation.
He’s got the ability to put up big numbers and maybe lead a pass-rusher room at another school playing at a high level and has the opportunity to make the most of that, but he just wasn’t going to get the opportunity at Mizzou anymore.
For Mikai Gbayor, it means Triston Newson came back and Nicholas Rodriguez had a really good spring.
Kind of simple as that.
I was looking forward to watching Gbayor play this season. When he transferred in, I thought he could be the next leader in the linebacker room coming out of the portal like Ty’Ron Hopper and Corey Flagg. But he left Nebraska because he didn’t want to be in a big rotating group and with Newson back and Rodriguez seeming to earn a spot in the regular group, that’s exactly what he transferred into at Mizzou.
And it doesn’t help that DJ Smith did the recruiting to get him to Columbia and then left two weeks later for the Appalachian State job.
For Ja’Marion Wayne, it’s that he tried at multiple positions and never really caught on anywhere well enough to earn playing time. Maybe he’ll be good enough to really be part of the rotation either at cornerback or receiver at a lower-level school first and then take another shot at moving up next year.
What they all have in common is, they came about because the Tigers have depth at just about every position.
2. So how will the Tigers fair without them?
I expect, just fine.
Like I said, these are not departures for greener pastures team wise ...
