Triumphs in Texas make Tigers tempting

[Note: this story has been modified since its original posting to restore text that had been inadvertently omitted.]

Dave Yost wishes Missouri could play a football game in Texas every year.

“We always want to play at least one game down there,” Yost, who is the Tigers’ recruiting coordinator and quarterbacks coach, said.

This year the Tigers have two games in Texas, last week’s game against Texas Tech and Saturday’s game against Texas A&M. Next year, however, the Tigers are not as lucky. The Red Raiders and Aggies will travel to Columbia.

The Lone Star State is one of college football’s most fertile recruiting grounds and Missouri has taken advantage of the state’s wealth of players. The Tigers have 25 players on their roster from Texas, which is the most from any state besides Missouri. Players from Texas include Chase Daniel, Brad Ekwerekwu, Mike Cook and Jared Perry on offense and Brian Smith, Marcus Bacon, David Overstreet and Stryker Sulak on defense.

Missouri’s 38-21 victory against Texas Tech could go a long way in making sure the Tigers continue to have success recruiting in Texas.

“Anytime you can go down there and perform at a high level and win a game, it is a big deal down there,” Yost said. “It is going to be in all the papers. It’s not always just the game itself, it’s the week build up.”

Yost said before the game against the Red Raiders, there were stories about Daniel, Overstreet, Ekwerekwu and Smith in various Texas publications.

If Missouri wins Saturday at Texas A&M, the Tigers could start to have an edge in recruiting against the Aggies.

“It’s definitely important,” Del Howard, a freshman cornerback from Dallas, said. “I have a friend from Texas that is being recruited by Missouri and he doesn’t know where to go yet. If we go down there and get a clean sweep against the Texas teams, I believe he might be coming up here.”

Recruiting in Texas is not always as easy as it seems with so much competition for the state’s top prospects.

“I think A&M for the most part is right up there with Texas as the premier school, and Texas Tech has done a phenomenal job to push themselves into that same position,” Yost said.

Missouri has to compete for recruits with Louisiana State, Arizona, Arizona State and the rest of the teams in the Big 12 Conference.

“The good thing is, with how many kids there are down there, there is still

enough to go around,” Yost said.

Missouri gets a lot of players that could have played for one of Texas’ top schools, Yost said, because sometimes players are undersized, slip through the cracks, or projected to play a different position in college than they did in high school. Overstreet, who played quarterback at W.W. Samuel High School in Dallas, is a strong safety for the Tigers.

Despite all the attention given to Texas, Yost and head coach Gary Pinkel make it clear that home-grown talent is still most important.

“Missouri is our No. 1 priority.” Pinkel said. “They play very good football here in the state of Missouri, but we have to be able to supplement it with high quality athletes and that is where Texas has been good for us.”

Pinkel said the idea of recruiting heavily in Texas comes from his coaching days in Washington.

“Obviously our top priority there was the Pacific Northwest and the state of Washington,” Pinkel said. “Then what we tried to do was recruit California. With good football and a high population base, SC (Southern California) and UCLA certainly got who they wanted generally, even with our great teams at Washington. But there were so many players down there, if you had a good evaluation system, you could find really high level players. So we took that same philosophy here.”

Of the eight Missouri coaches that have recruiting areas, five of them recruit in Texas. .

Both Yost and Pinkel said the team chooses to recruit Texas instead of other states, such as Florida or California, because of the lack of attention Missouri gets in those states.

“Our games are going to be on down there (Texas),” Yost said. “They are going to hear a lot more about us and read about us and know about us than a kid in Virginia or California. Also the papers are going to cover the Big 12 more down there than they are going to cover the Big 10 or the SEC.”

TELEVISION: Kickoff for the Texas A&M game on is set for 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. The game will be shown regionally on ABC.

Missouri’s Homecoming game on Oct. 21 will not be on TV, Chad Moller, a spokesperson for the team, said Monday. Moller said there is a possibility that the game could be on pay-per-view.

INJURY UPDATES: Marcus Woods (concussion) and Brock Christopher (hip pointer) are both listed as probable for Saturday’s game. Pinkel said he expects both to play. Pinkel also said he expects Van Alexander to play against the Aggies. Alexander has been sidelined all season with hip and groin injuries.

Ziggy Hood is questionable for Saturday’s game. Coaches and medical staff decided Friday that Hood, who broke a bone in his right foot against New Mexico, would not play in the Texas Tech game.

Trenile Washington, who broke his left ankle during preseason camp, is still a few weeks away from returning, Pinkel said.

Finally, Pinkel said, Domonique Johnson will have surgery today to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee he suffered against Colorado.