Does Mizzou belong in the SEC? 'Dang right' says LB Eric Beisel
HOOVER, Ala. — Following back to back down seasons in Columbia, in which Missouri failed to go bowling after coming off repeat trips to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game, there’s a vocal crowd wondering if the Southeastern Conference made a mistake adding Mizzou to the league.
If you are among the anti-Mizzou group, whatever you do, don’t mention that to senior linebacker Eric Beisel. The very question appeared to anger the Tiger defender during the league’s latest Media Days event.
“I was just asked if Missouri belongs in the SEC — dang right we belong in the SEC. We’ve earned that respect,” Beisel emphatically stated to reporters.
Considering the Tiger linebacker has achieved a level of success current Tennessee and Georgia players only dream of, Beisel has a point.
“I’ve played for four teams here, and two of those teams went to the SEC Championship,” Beisel continued. “We’ve had two down years, but we fully expect to get back to the top. I want to avenge the legacy. We want to attack the line every single rep, one play at a time.”
While his team may have struggled to initially handle the transition from legendary head coach Gary Pinkel to his successor Barry Odom, the Tigers showed enough signs of life late last season that optimism has returned to Columbia. Beisel was able to personally bring back some swagger to the program heading into the comeback win over Arkansas — something he was eager to discuss during his Wednesday media availability.
While his pregame comments were made to put the outside world on notice, his trip to Hoover for Media Days also follows the script the Mizzou linebacker laid out for himself heading into his college career.
“I expected to be here today (for SEC Media Days), that was on the agenda,” Beisel admitted. “It’s confidence, some people call me confident, cocky, you can call me arrogant, but you can never call me selfish. I’m here for my team, I’m here for my coaching staff, I’m here to represent the state of Missouri, how the state of Missouri deserves to be represented.”
What’s next for Mizzou? According to Beisel, despite lowered expectations outside the program — expect the SEC Media to predict the Tigers near the bottom of the East division heading into 2017, the expectations inside the locker room are a different matter.
“We’re focused on summer ball right now, but we do have high expectations for this team and for this season,” Beisel concluded. “Perfection is the goal, and greatness is the expectation.”
Has anyone asked South Carolina, Arkansas or A&M if they belong here?
Probably the best rebuttal I’ve heard UGArmy.
I’ve been a UGA season ticket holder for 30+ years. We had the pleasure of being at your first SEC game in 2012 and have never been treated as well on another SEC campus, strangers telling us they were glad we were there and inviting us to their tailgate parties, etc. It was amazing. We look forward to going back but my wife and I still talk about that trip.
I remember that game and all the good fans that made the long trip. The game was full of big plays and it was close till the very end.
Just keep beating a dead horse. This subject has just become annoying. They aren’t leaving the SEC anytime soon. Move on and talk about something else.
Honestly, the question has nothing to do with the success or failure of the football team. It’s an odd cultural fit. Maybe that will change over time. A&M, Arkansas, and South Carolina have always seemed like SEC Schools. They’ve always had a level of redneck that seems to fit right in.
No one has the level of redneck to compete with Auburn!
Not really sure why this would come up now since its been 5 years but ok. It does seem a bit of an insult given the two East titles (I’d rather not talk about the other 3 years). And we have plenty of rednecks in our state!! But yes, geographically it doesn’t make a ton of sense but then again neither did the Big Longhorn. I enjoy traveling to Ole Miss, Tennessee and Vandy over K-State, Kansas and Iowa State. The Big 10 makes the most sense but I love the SEC. Every stadium I’ve visited has been a blast and fans have been cordial. Same with visting fans to the Zoo. Hopefully we represent a little better on the field this year.
When this was all going down, I preferred West Virginia. Then Missouri won two East titles and I thought I might have been wrong. Then the protests happened, and I was back to being right. The cultural fit isn’t good, but we are stuck with Missouri now, so we might as well make the best of it.
National media blew the protests out of proportion. If the football team didn’t get involved its likely nobody outside of the city of Columbia, Missouri would have known that there was even a protest.
There was a counter protest of sorts. People driving through campus w confederate flags out the back of their pick ups and such. That didn’t get much reporting.
Also, someone spread cotton balls over the lawn of the multicultural center a few years before that. It was the B12 years, so many SEC fans wouldn’t know about it.
It shows that the Jim Crow type attitude some southerners (though not all) espouse unfortunately surfaces occasionally at Mizzou. A cultural fit, if you will. Pretty “rednecky” behavior from time to time. Overall though, very liberal town. I imagine Athens and other liberal southern cities deal with the problems of this juxtaposition as well. It is my experience that Columbia is a little liberal oasis in a desert of solid “southern cultural fit”. This is why the B10 didn’t want us and why the SEC thinks we’re northerners
Until the 60s the band played Dixie after touchdowns and a fraternity would wave the battle flag. How is this culturally different than Oxford?
Not sure what the protest had to do with being part of the SEC, care to explain why the F%$k that makes a difference? You’re saying that a protest by a group of black students changed your mind about Missouri belonging in the SEC? What, may I ask, makes you “right”? (The clear assumption here is that you’re just a racist, feel free to clarify your comment though.) I dont personally agree with the protest and i think the students handled it poorly, but that’s why the 1st amendment exists.
You are awful sensitive. The protests were a fraud from the beginning. The kid on the hunger strike was eating and was the son of a multi millionaire. Hardly a victim. No pictures of the racists comments in this day when everyone has a cell phone. The football team threatening a strike? It’s a school with less than a 10% black student body that elected a black student body president. That doesn’t seem like a culture of racism. You can defend that nonsense if you want. You seem like the typical nutjob. As soon as someone disagrees with you, you start name calling and breaking out the race card. How utterly transparent.
I’m with ya when you’re right!
Thank you sir. I’m slowly coming around and I’m actually interested in watching Missouri play this season.
There are two sides to this. On one side is a national problem where people don’t respect police orders and police over-react becoming prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. That certainly deserves appropriate protest on every college campus and in every city. On the other side are the BIG LIES saying that the Missouri campus was hostile to minorities because it certainly was not and is not. Gary Pinkel missed a chance to support the Missouri University community and any good man-football coach knows that contracts are promises and all men keep promises. So everyone had a right to not like what Pinkel did, but he got retired over it, and all the upperclassmen who lead that wrongful protest are no longer at Mizzzou. So now nobody has real bug up their ***, at this point it’s just an excuse to be a hater. It would be no different than someone saying LSU should not be in the SEC because they fire their coaches mid-season and keeping that attitude even after the firing decision makers were fired. So I with ya when you’re right also, but you are no longer right about this one.
As usual wolfman, you make little sense.
LSUSMC, learn to read…please. I stated that i didnt agree with the protest, but that is irrelevant. My question to you was why does that random protest make you think Mizzou shouldn’t be in the SEC? What does it have to do with anything regarding “SEC Culture” if not for the fact that there is a clear race element to it. Again, please explain yourself.
You are trying to do the same thing to me that the protesters did to the school; make me a racist. You through the card out there. Now you can go screw yourself. I say that with no anger or malice. I just have no respect for race baiters or racists. You fit one of those categories, so three you go. I didn’t want Missouri before the protests, but they happened. That just solidified my position.
HAHA! I’m not trying to “make you a racist”. I simply asked you to clarify what you meant by your comment, which is i why i told you to feel free to clarify in my post. You’ve now doubled down on the fact that the protest made you not want mizzou in the conference…so by all means please explain what it was about the protest that was so damning for Mizzou. If you think that’s race baiting, then clearly you have a perfectly acceptable explanation that doesn’t involve race. For the 3rd time now…I’d love to hear your defense.
No we don’t’. We belong in the “Big Eight” easily the greatest football conference ever. And the sec should feel honored to have probably the third place team of a conference that generally had the top two spots in polls and a third in the top ten. A conference whose champ you had to play year in and year if you were going to be champ. You’re welcome.
Delusion at its finest.
shallow base of knowledge at it’s most obvious
and I’m not trying to do anything to you when I talk about the class-less firing of Les Miles mid-season. You are not responsible personally. Don’t try to be a victim over that. We will see if LSU belongs in the SEC if they clean up their act. If not we have that cultural mis-match vs. all the programs that are making clear efforts to honor the SEC conference. Here’s something personal, have you noticed that certain bloggers seem to think the team they identify with is lending them a microphone? It’s embarrassing.
LSU was in the SEC before you were born. You will never see an article questioning our membership. Nothing wrong at all firing a coach during the season. I defended him at the end of last season but supported the firing when it happened. Les lied to keep his job last year. When he was exposed, he had to geaux
As if your personal defense means something one way or the other.
You still can make a coherent post. Maybe next time.
Can’t.