Five things to watch for at SEC Media Days

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The unofficial start of the 2019 football season, the SEC Media Days, is upon us. Monday, Missouri’s contingent of head coach Barry Odom and players Kelly Bryant, Cale Garrett and DeMarkus Acy will be the first to face the horde of media in Hoover, Alabama. PowerMizzou will provide coverage throughout the day.

While Media Days may be dominated by conference pageantry and outlandish questions, there should be a few newsworthy updates and interesting happenings for Tiger fans to look forward to. We detail five things to watch below.

Each team typically provides a depth chart at Media Days, and while there is still plenty of time for the depth chart to change during fall camp, it will be interesting to see who made a favorable impression during the spring and who has the inside track to playing time entering camp. There are a few questions Missouri’s depth chart could answer. Is Taylor Powell still listed as the No. 2 quarterback behind Bryant? Is the staff comfortable listing rising sophomores Hyrin White and Larry Borom as the starters at right tackle and left guard, respectively? What does the pecking order look like at defensive end? Of course, a depth chart update should also convey any position changes or roster defections. More on that shortly.

As of our last conversation with Odom in mid June, Missouri had 87 players on scholarship, two above the NCAA limit of 85. As far as we know, there have not been any defections since then. We will certainly ask Odom whether any players aside from cornerback Terry Petry have left the roster this season, and if not, how he plans to trim the scholarship count to 85.

The Tiger roster includes a couple of players still awaiting word on their eligibility this season. Defensive end Tre Williams has been suspended indefinitely since December, when he was arrested on suspicion of second-degree domestic assault. Williams was scheduled to appear in court last week. If he was found guilty, the charge would go down as a felony, which would result in him being permanently barred from the team, according to the Missouri student-athlete handbook. (That would take care of one of the two scholarships needing to come off the books.) If the charges were modified or dropped, he could potentially rejoin the roster, though it's worth noting that he hasn’t participated in team workouts since the arrest and may have a bit of catching up to do. Hopefully Odom will provide an update on his status.

Robinson, meanwhile, will be on the roster no matter what this season, but he is awaiting a ruling from the NCAA on a waiver filed in May that would allow him to be eligible to see the field. Without the waiver, Robinson, who transferred to Missouri from TCU during the offseason, will be required by NCAA rules to sit out this season. If he is cleared to play, he would likely back up Bryant, but he could appear in up to four games and still preserve his two remaining seasons of eligibility.

The Missouri contingent will certainly be bombarded with questions about the postseason ban and other sanctions handed down by the NCAA to the program in January. While it’s unlikely Odom will shed any new light on the status of the school’s appeal, it will be interesting to see how he and the players confront such questions. Odom may very well broach the sanctions on his own during his opening remarks then decline to field questions about them from reporters. He could simply cite the ongoing appeal and opt not to go into detail about the Committee on Infractions’ ruling, or he could use the stage to try explain Missouri’s case and perhaps sway public opinion to the Tigers’ cause. Odom’s words should in no way impact the decision of the appellate committee, but the sanctions will be the dominant storyline of the team’s media availability Monday and, potentially, of the entire season, so it will be worth watching how Odom and company handle the subject.

If the sanctions are the top storyline of Missouri’s offseason, the acquisition of Bryant from Clemson is a close second. (Side note: Good on Missouri for bringing a first-year starting quarterback to the event. Not every coach in the league would have done the same.) Bryant will no doubt be swarmed by reporters from around the conference wondering why he chose Missouri, of all places; whether he wavered when the sanctions were handed down; how he fits in Derek Dooley’s offensive scheme. After playing in a College Football Playoff at Clemson, Bryant shouldn’t be phased by the attention, and it’s unlikely he says anything Missouri fans haven’t heard before. But one of the chief purposes of Media Days is to energize fans and capture the attention of national media, and by highlighting its accomplished new quarterback, Missouri should use Monday to do just that. Plus, if you like the more zany aspects of SEC Media Days, Bryant’s 15 minutes with reporters promises to entertain.