Blowin' Smoke Presented by Weston Tobacco

What's more fun than us giving you a chance to mock us every single week? In our new feature, Blowin' Smoke presented by Weston Tobacco, we will do that each and every Thursday. Gabe DeArmond and Mitchell Forde will make five predictions almost sure to go wrong every week in this space. These will range from big games to big picture predictions with a bit of the comedic and absurd mixed in most weeks as well.

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Mitchell: No. Look, I really want them to, and I'm not trying to say it's impossible, but in my mind the chances of even starting to play games isn't much better than about 60-40. Then if they do start, there's a good chance of a few games being messed up by outbreaks, like we've seen with the MLB, if not a mid-season cancelation. I think the odds are stacked against playing the full schedule.

Gabe: The smart bet is no. A week into the baseball season, 20% of the league had missed games. Odds are, most teams are going to miss a game or two here or there if they can get going to begin with. Hopefully seven weeks from now the threat seems smaller and we think they can play all ten. But for now, I'll say no with the right to change my mind.

Gabe: I've said over and over the record doesn't matter this year. Getting started and then getting finished matters. Obviously you don't want to go 1-9, but if you're doing it with half your lines out and a running back at quarterback and no kicker half the season who can complain all that much? To me, the only games you'll look at and say "That ought to be a win" are Vanderbilt and Arkansas. Mississippi State and South Carolina are probably legitimate toss-up games and Kentucky, Tennessee and maybe one of the games that gets added will be games that Missouri won't be favored, but it wouldn't be a monumental upset if they won. If Mizzou can get to four wins, almost regardless of anything else, it's decent. Anything above four I'd have to say would be an unqualified success.

Mitchell: That's a tough question to answer both because at least two of Missouri's opponents are still unknown and because I really can't think of much that I would consider unsatisfactory. Certainly anything better than 5-5 would be pretty good, but I'm not sure I would be able to call 4-6 or even 3-7 bad, necessarily. I guess it depends how the games unfold. Like if Mizzou goes 3-7 and looks uncompetitive in a bunch of the losses or wins fewer than three games, that would be cause for concern, for sure. But if they draw two of Auburn, LSU and Alabama for the remaining two spots on the schedule, win four games and play a few more close, I think most people should come away from that satisfied.

Mitchell: I'll start with the defense because that's obvious. It pretty much has to be Nick Bolton. Even if for some reason he doesn't play quite as well as last season, he's still going to be the vocal leader of the defense and probably average a million tackles per game playing middle linebacker. He's the guy on that side of the ball who you can least afford to lose, which is another way of saying he's the most valuable. On offense, I'm going to shy away from picking a quarterback because I still haven't seen enough from either Shawn Robinson or Connor Bazelak and say Larry Rountree III. Rountree should be hungry to bounce back in his final season of eligibility. The only question with him is whether the offensive line can create enough room for him to operate.

Gabe: Bolton and Rountree are pretty much automatic picks, I think. Those are the clear-cut best players on each side of the ball. But as far as most valuable, I'll throw you a curveball. I think Michael Maetti might be the most valuable on offense. He's got more than 2,000 snaps logged in his college career. Every other offensive lineman on the team combines for only 2300. The line is a huge question mark on this team and as the only real proven player on it, Maetti could be big.

Mitchell: I'll say yes, just because with more than 100 kids on the team, the odds are that someone will be concerned enough about the virus or use it as cover to tackle a hard academic semester or he was on the fence about continuing to play football anyway.

Gabe: This is similar to the first question. Simple math says somebody will. There are no certain first round NFL picks on the roster, but still, somebody probably will. I have no idea who. I've not heard even a whisper of someone on Mizzou's team thinking about opting out. But I've got to believe pretty much every team is going to have someone do it.

Mitchell: I gotta go with my guy Justin Thomas. He's hot, coming off a win last week in which he didn't even look his best, he's the new World No. 1 and he's won this tournament before. Also, for those who don't know, we went to high school together, so I'm legally bound to pick him in every golf tournament in which he competes.

Gabe: I didn't go to high school with any PGA players and Tom Watson isn't playing. I'll go with Dustin Johnson. He's in the hunt at just about every major and I think he'll get it done here.