Bring your Tigers football and basketball questions, and talk to Mizzou beat writer Dave Matter in a live chat starting at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Breaking news on the football staff: Missouri has hired David Gibbs as a defensive assistant. No specific job title yet. Most recently he was the defensive coordinator at Texas Tech the last four years. Former DBs coach for the Chiefs & Broncos.
Dave - Could you remind me how the off season works with the players and coaches before spring practice begins? Will they have a plan for Kelly Bryant to start working with the wide receivers ASAP to start building chemistry - for him and for them? I think we have a nice group of young receivers coming back.
Throughout January they have morning mat drill sessions that aren't football practices per se, but more based around conditioning. Then players are allowed to spend X amount of time with coaches in non-practice workouts. No full pads or anything like that. They'll have plenty of "voluntary" workouts between QBs and receivers from now until the start of the season. That'll be ongoing.
Dave - Do we know who will be the tight end coach next year? Do you think that was a factor in Albert O returning?
I don't know for certain. Garrick McGee would be the safe bet, but unclear as of now.
Dave - What positions do you a void come spring and summer practices that need to be addressed? I still think defensive end is still a big question mark for this team.
There'll be competition at the two outside linebacker positions.
Why does it look like Mizzou has more attendance problems than other schools? Does it have to do with sitting arrangement? Students not going? It looks pretty bad when you turn on the game and there are empty sets everywhere.
I don't know, but there are seven schools in the SEC averaging fewer fans.
Good afternoon Dave, and thank you as always for your excellent work covering the Tigers. I was wondering what happened to Nate Brown this year? It was so aggravating all season long with Coach Odom basically telling us each and every week that Brown might play in the upcoming week's game, but if I'm not mistaken, we never saw him on the field again after the Georgia game?
He made one comeback during the regular season and then played in the bowl game. He had a groin injury was all we were told. That sounds painful to me.
He just said in the second half.
So Dave, I saw your response to arnezzi about the students not showing up for the games. So I guess Mizzou is the only school in the nation having revenue issues and has to make their students pay for seats and that's why they're not coming to the games? Forgive me for my slight sarcasm with that question, but I am so frustrated either turning on the TV or attending the games in person and seeing empty seats in the student section time and again. It never seems to be a problem when I watch other games on TV--schools with teams about equal or even less than Mizzou always seem to have the seats filled with loud, enthusiastic students. The game at South Carolina this past Sunday was a prime example of that. What is the solution? Maybe Mizzou needs to hire better people in its marketing department? Maybe we need to do something like whatever that free chicken thing deal is that so many SEC schools seem to do at basketball games. Is there a solution? Or do we simply have one of the worst, most disloyal fan bases in all of college sports and we just have to accept it? Thank you for letting me vent.
I was at South Carolina and can tell you there were not students there.
I don't have the answers to the attendance issue. Franky, it's not my problem. Mizzou needs to do a better job marketing the program, putting a better product on the floor and fans need to show up if they care about participating in the solution.
Yes. That fact can't be ignored. If you're a senior at Mizzou, the program was at rock bottom for the bulk of their time on campus.
A lot of folks are criticizing the fan base for the half-empty arena. Doesn't decades of garbage product have something to do with it??
OK, folks. I've got some news to report and we've run out of time. Thanks for taking part this week.