On Mizzou and expectations

MizzouWhen writing a lede to my first Missouri football piece on the 2009, the urge is to say something like, "It's been a long time since we entered a season with such a high degree of uncertainty." Time moves fast, though, and after thinking things through, I realize that it hasn't been that long at all. When it comes to achieving expectations, the Tigers have been all over the map during the Gary Pinkel era. However, losing Chase Daniel, Jeremy Maclin and Chase Coffman at the same time does signify that we're entering the next era of Missouri football. Expectations have waned from a team that had national title aspirations a year ago. My question is this: Have expectations dropped too far?read more