Belated links

We've got a lot to get to today so lets get right to it:

• Not only did Ben Askren qualify for the Olympics, but he was so confident he would do it that he reserved a 40-person suite in Las Vegas to celebrate his qualifying...a week before trials even started. He's also made t-shirts with his silhouette against China's flag that says "putting the 'chin' in China." I'd love to get ahold of one of those. Askren's going to make olympic wrestling a lot more interesting for me this year.

• A great column by Joe Walljasper, listing the 25 biggest wins in Mizzou football history. You gotta love that two of the top 10 are from last season but am I the only one that thinks Nebraska '97 belongs on the list? I know we didn't technically win but maybe we could include an asterisk with it? Just a thought.

• Our friends at Mizzou Rah wrote a hilarious post comparing each Big 12 team to a brand of potato chips. If you liked his comparison of Big 12 teams to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out characters then you'll love this one too. 

• If the college basketball season ended today, Joe Lunardi thinks we'd be dancin' as an 11 seed! Bring on Bob Thuggins!

• Don Faurot is the face of our program.

• Chase Coffman was embarrassed by his performance over the last eight games of the season. Yeah, now that I think about it I guess those plays he made against Colorado weren't that amazing.

• I actually found a fantastic post concerning Keon Lawrence on Tigerboard about how despite his sophomore slump, he's still played above the ranking he had in the class of '06. I've said all along that Keon has to be the leader of the team next year. When putting his sophomore season into perspective you have to consider all the things Keon had going against him, all of which were really outside his control. The issues with his family (including his brother being murdered), the chemistry issues with Stef (not Keon's fault), etc. I think the team's going to be in much better shape now that Keon feels he's in a position to take on a leadership role.

• Steve Walentik broke down each freshman's performance in a recent pickup game. 

• Not everyone in Champaign was happy with Ron Zook last season.

• So there is actually a reason why Armageddon Part II won't be Prime Time. I'll let Dave Matter explain:

"Here's what I've been told as to why this game will be on FSN, not ABC/ESPN: The networks essentially have four “draft picks” for the Thanksgiving weekend. This year, the draft falls in this order: No. 1 ABC/ESPN, No. 2 ABC/SPN, No. 3 FSN, No. 4 ABC/ESPN. The Big 12 needed the networks to make their selections by June to allow for any games to be moved to different days for TV purposes. ABC took the Texas A&M/Texas game on Thursday with the No. 1 pick. ABC took Oklahoma/Oklahoma State for Saturday with the No. 2 pick. MU officials assume ABC would have liked to take Missouri-Kansas at No. 4, but FSN slipped in and took the Border War with the No. 3 pick. That left ABC with Colorado/Nebraska in at No. 4."

So ABC would rather have A&M/Texas and OU/OSU over the Border War. I guess I can understand the first one because of the enormous fanbases of both teams, but do you really expect OU/OSU to get higher ratings than the Border War? Maybe it will but I would find that surprising.

• I also found T-Ruck's mini-camp diary, via Matter's blog.

• The Jacksonville Jaguars decided to cut ties with Brian Smith. You have to feel so bad for Mizzou's other B. Smith who never recovered from that fluky hip injury he suffered during his senior season. I'll never understand why Smith was even on the field at that point in the game (late in the fourth quarter, up by at least three scores). Doesn't that have to rank right up there with Pinkel electing to play Tony Temple during his freshman season as one of the biggest blunders of his career? I find it odd that he basically got a free pass for this during a time when many Mizzou fans were still looking for reasons to bash him.

• And last but not least, a couple of Mizzou football promos from the makers of Rock M Nation. These are Zou Dave-esque so if you don't click on any other links in this post, be sure to click on these. I love the first one because it uses the music from "The Contender" and I'm a huge Rocky fan (little known fact, MU has never lost a home football game when I've listened to that song on gameday) but the second one has all of Mike Kelly's calls of the biggest plays from last season and includes a cameo by my boy Greg Bracey, so bonus points for that.