re: 2013 Mizzou Football & Basketball Recruiting News *Commits and OVs in OP*

Also offered Jacksonville,FL DE Demarcus Walker

Demarcus Walker

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Thats a big fish.

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Yes it is.

I only see 8 offers to Texas kids. Historically, does anyone know approximately how many offers we've made to Texas kids each year? 10? 20? Obviously it varies each year and I know its still early but just trying to get a gauge on how much we're shifting out of recruiting Texas, if at all.

Thanks and thanks for all the updates UR. I was trying to get a gauge of how much of a shift. I bet we're up around 20 already in GA/FL. Good to see and hopefully we can actually land some now.

I was curious myself to see how Pinkel was adapting so I looked it up on rivals real quick.

Missouri offers in Texas:

2012 class: 48
2011: 36
2010: 58
2009: 38
2008: 45
2007: 47
2006: 35
2005: 33
2004: 29
2003: 24

double post

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Dont know how old you are but do remember how the transition went for Arkansas regarding Texas recruiting when you moved to the SEC?

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I saw a hog fan say they went through same thing that we did last year.

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Cheshire I really do enjoy your input, please keep it coming on

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I agree, there are a couple of Arky guys here that are really knowledgeable and quality posters.

Its becoming more clear to me as I spend time here that they are always fighting the uphill battle and defending themselves against LSU/Gump flames and that might explain some of the reaction and pushback to Mizzou here on the Rant.

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Dont know how old you are but do remember how the transition went for Arkansas regarding Texas recruiting when you moved to the SEC?

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I was 11 when we moved to the SEC but I've heard the stories of our epic clusterfrick. We did about everything you could possibly do wrong during our transition to the SEC.

First thing we did in 1990 was fire our head coach who had the all time best winning % ever at Arkansas because he and Frank Broyles didn't get along. That led us to being coached by Jack Crowe as we entered in to the SEC which was a complete trainwreck. His first two years (91 & 92) were our worst two back to back years since the early 50's. That really set us up poorly for our first year in the SEC because we came in with a wimper which wasn't good for recruiting.

On top of the horrible coaching we decided to pretty much stop recruiting Texas all together and focus on SEC country. What they seemingly forgot with this idea was that for 25 years while we were a common top 15 team about half our roster yearly was filled with Texas kids that made huge contributions. Now, of course, it was much easier to recruit Texas back then because everyone in our conference but us was from Texas so we played a lot of games down there. This thought process led to the powers that be deciding that since we wouldn't be playing there anymore that we should focus in the south.

The problem with this, and it's one that we have just started to move away from 20 years later, is that we play virtually no games in Florida or Georgia because we aren't in the East so we have never really gotten elite players from down there because we are so far away. Sure we have had guys develop in to great players like Malcolm Sheppard, Sam Olajabutu and Michael Smith but none of them were elite recruits.

The other problem we had when we entered the SEC was that our facilites were absolute crap and Fayetteville was still impossible to get to at the time. Kids from Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee were in no way shape or form blown away by the product we were trotting out on the field or the facilities we were playing in at the time. They weren't going to move that far from home to play for us back then.

Our first few years in the SEC were pretty bleak and it was a big slap in the face to our fan base that had accustomed to playing in big time bowls more regularly in the SWC. I wouldn't wish this upon you guys or A&M because trust me it sucked.

We've had 3 coaches in the SEC prior to Petrino and none of them put a huge emphasis on Texas which I have always felt was a mistake. They all followed the same business model of recruit Arkansas and the other SEC states. Petrino has definitely changed this and you can see in the numbers below that he has started hitting Texas pretty hard again. I think he understands that we aren't going to go in to Florida, Georgia and Alabama and beat out the big time schools when we are 10-12 hours away. We were at our best historically when we were stocked full of Texas players and it took us almost 20 years of realizing it the hard way before someone turned it around.

That's why I am interested in what Pinkel does. I believe you will probably have more success out of the gate down there than us because you will at least play in the area regularly unlike us and you have been successful in the immediate years prior to joining the SEC. However, I think it would be a mistake to abandon Texas all together for two reasons. One you have had success for the last decade with those kids so don't break what was working and two I think you will end up in the West sooner than later so you don't want to burn those ties that took so long to build.


Arkansas offers in Texas:

2013 - 26 already this year
2012 - 52
2011 - 53
2010 - 53
2009 - 15 - Petrino's first class
2008 - 23
2007 - 25
2006 - 11
2005 - 14
2004 - 33
2003 - 22
2002 - 26