Ultimate Mizzou Player Championship
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.
There are no guidelines for the voting. You can vote for the player you think is the best, you can vote for your favorite player, you can vote based on what they did at Mizzou, what they did in the pros, who had the best hair or what high school they went to. It's your vote, do with it as you please.
Today, we open the vote for the best player in Tiger history.
Anyone can see the bracket in this story, but to vote, you'll need to be a subscriber. Sign up for your membership today and you won't be charged until September 1st.
THIRD PLACE: JEREMY MACLIN VS ROGER WEHRLI
Despite making it all the way to the final four, Maclin could not take down his college quarterback in the semifinals.
Maclin was a two-time all-American in two seasons at Missouri after missing his first year with a torn ACL. In 2007 he set the national freshman record with 2,776 all-purpose yards, including more than 1,000 receive and 1,000 on kickoff returns. He set the school record for all-purpose yardage in just two seasons and held the single-season receiving record with 102 catches for 1,260 yards and 13 touchdowns as a redshirt sophomore.
Wehrli rolled through the competition until running up against Justin Smith in the Final Four.
Wehrli was a force in the defensive backfield, intercepting ten passes, including seven in his all-American senior season (a school record that stood for 39 years). But he was also one of the best return men in the country, setting the Big Eight record for punt return yards and leading the nation as a senior in addition to returning a kickoff 96 yards for a TD. He played 14 years for the St. Louis Cardinals, had 62 takeaways, made seven Pro Bowls and the 1970's all-decade team. He was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
CHAMPIONSHIP: CHASE DANIEL VS JUSTIN SMITH
The two most dominant players through the first five rounds of voting meet for the title of best player in Mizzou history.
Daniel got at least 78.5% of the vote in each of his first five matchups and then nailed down nearly 85% of the votes cast against Jeremy Maclin. Daniel set pretty much every passing record in the books at Mizzou while leading the Tigers to a No. 1 ranking and a school record 12 wins in 2007, a season in which he finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting. He is widely viewed as the player that put Mizzou on the national map in this century.
Smith had gotten at least 96% of the vote in every round on his way to the Final Four before a stiff challenge from Roger Wehrli that saw Godzilla move on with 56% of the vote. Smith was an honorable mention all-Big 12 player as a freshman in 1998 before making the first-team in 1999 and 2000. He was an all-American in 2000 as well when he set school records with 11 sacks and 24 tackles for a loss. He still ranks second on Mizzou's career list with 22.5 sacks despite playing just three seasons and is the career leader with 50 tackles for a loss. Cincinnati took Smith with the fourth overall pick in the 2001 NFL Draft. He was a five-time Pro Bowler and a two-time all-pro in 14 seasons with the Bengals and San Francisco 49ers.
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