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Mizzou has been playing football for 130 years. As we wait and hope that season 131 will start on time, we're going to take a look back through Tiger history and identify the best of the best.
Over the next six weeks, we'll pare down our list of 64 players (selected, seeding and put into regions by position) to the best player in Tiger history. And PowerMizzou.com subscribers will make the pick.
The brackets will be posted and explained below. Then, on our premium message board, we will start a poll for each matchup. The polls will remain open through the week, closing on Friday night. The winners will move on to the next round, we will update the bracket and publish a new story and new polls the following Sunday. After six weeks, we will have the best Tiger football player as selected by our subscribers. Take a look at how we got here:
The people have spoke and selected Chase Daniel as the best player in Tiger history. Daniel got 76.2% of the vote in the final match against defensive lineman Justin Smith. It was the closest vote involving Daniel in all six rounds of the tournament. Smith had received at least 96% of the vote in every round leading up to the Final Four before edging Roger Wehrli and losing to Daniel. Wehrli beat Jeremy Maclin in the third place vote.
Following a record-setting career at Southlake Carroll High School in Texas, Daniel signed with the Tigers in the Class of 2005. He immediately made an impact, beating out Brandon Coleman for the right to back up Brad Smith as a true freshman.
In an attempt to groom him for the future, Gary Pinkel played Daniel for a series in most games that first season, but it was clearly still Smith's job. But the freshman was pressed into duty on October 17, 2005 when Smith was knocked out of the game against Iowa State with a concussion.
The Tigers trailed 24-14 when Smith left the game with 8:50 to play. Daniel led the Tigers to a field goal and the defense forced a three-and-out by the Cyclones. Missouri got the ball back with 2:12 to go and Daniel marched them 87 yards in 11 plays to tie the game on a touchdown pass to Sean Coffey. It was the only touchdown pass Daniel threw all season. Missouri would win in overtime, the victory giving them the necessary six to qualify for a bowl game at the end of the season and the future of Tiger football was forever changed.
As a sophomore, the starting job was Daniel's from the start. With Smith gone and dozens of school records in his wake, the gunslinger from Southlake set to rewriting all of the record books. Daniel threw for 3,527 yards and 28 touchdowns as a sophomore, both of which were school records at the time. It would end up being the least productive season of his career.
Mizzou won eight games that season, the first time since Smith's sophomore year Missouri had reached that mark. They would lose to Oregon State in the Sun Bowl, but the stage was set for the greatest season in school history led by the signature season of Daniel's career.
Missouri was not dismissed in the 2007 preseason, but it was certainly undervalued. The Tigers beat Illinois in the opener, won at Ole Miss in week two and rolled into a showdown with Nebraska at 4-0. It was no contest. Daniel threw for 401 yards and two touchdowns as the Tigers dismantled the Cornhuskers 41-6.
Mizzou would lose 41-31 to Oklahoma the following week in Norman, but didn't stay down for long. Mizzou beat Texas Tech by 31, Iowa State by 14, Colorado by 45, Texas A&M by 14 and Kansas State by 17 over the next five games. Each was needed because Missouri was trying to keep pace with the undefeated Kansas Jayhawks. KU entered the regular season's final game at Arrowhead Stadium at 11-0 ranked second in the country. No. 4 Missouri was 10-1. What followed was perhaps the best individual big-game performance in Mizzou history.
Daniel completed 40-of-49 passes for 361 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions in a 36-28 win over Kansas that iced Missouri's first ever Big 12 North championship and vaulted the Tigers to No. 1 in the polls. They would lose the Big 12 Championship game to Oklahoma the following week before finishing out the season with a Cotton Bowl demolition of Arkansas.
Daniel was a Heisman finalist and a second-team all-American after completing 68.2% of his passes for 4,306 yards and 33 touchdowns. All were school records that would last exactly one year.
Daniel entered the 2008 season as a Heisman frontrunner and Missouri as a top five team. Both looked every bit of it through five weeks. The Tigers scored at least 42 points and had an average margin of victory of 33.4 in a 5-0 start culminating in a 52-17 win at Nebraska, the Tigers' first victory in Lincoln in 30 years.
Mizzou had not had so much as a three-and-out when Oklahoma State came to town considered a moderate speed bump on the way to bigger things. Instead, the Cowboys derailed Missouri's dream season with a 28-23 upset.
Mizzou would finish the 2008 season 10-4 with a second consecutive North division title and a second straight championship game loss to Oklahoma. While the team's success was a step down from the year before, Daniel's numbers were actually even better. He went 385-for-528 for 4,335 yards and 39 touchdowns as a senior. The completions, completion percentage (72.9) and yardage are all school records that still stand.
For his career, Daniel completed 1094 of 1609 passes (68%) for 12,515 yards and 101 touchdowns. All of those numbers still stand atop Missouri's record books. He has three of the ten most efficient passing games in school history, three of the six most efficient seasons and his career rating of 148.9 is ten points ahead of second-place Drew Lock. In terms of total offense, he has three of the top four individual seasons and eclipsed Brad Smith by 397 yards despite being the starter for seven fewer games than his predecessor.
Add it all up and you get a very deserving best player in school history.
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