Coach Gary Pinkel was impressed by the effort he saw at this morning’s practice after voicing mixed feelings about Missouri’s initial workout on Thursday afternoon.

The Tigers had a quick turnaround, taking the field at 7:15 a.m. after stopping at 5:45 p.m. on Thursday.

“I had a little bit better feeling about this practice,” Pinkel said. “I thought yesterday was OK, but you have an expectation level for how you have to practice to be a good football team, and I thought it was a really good practice this morning.

“A lot of that has to do with new players (at their) first practice and not knowing where to go and how to do things.”

Pinkel said the coaching staff is keeping a close eye on receiver Danario Alexander, who underwent two knee surgeries in six months — the first after the 2007 season and the second in June of 2008. He was a projected starter last season before the second surgery and finished with 26 catches for 329 yards.

Pinkel said Alexander is to tell coaches any time he feels discomfort in his knee.

“Overcommunicating with us is important,” he said.

Then he offered this analysis:

“We know the impact player he is. We’ve seen that before. He knows if he’d been 100 percent healthy, he’d have been right up there with J Mac in that area right now.”

Tight end Andrew Jones believes Alexander’s speed will make a difference.

“Danario will open the field for everybody,” he said.

Alexander is one player Pinkel has seen asserting himself as a leader. But he’s been surprised by some other sources of leadership.

“We had real strong leadership last year and we’ve been working on that since January,” he said. “It’s not just the seniors, but I see some juniors and some sophomores — some real young players — standing up and leading.

“One reason is that the last couple of years there have been visual aids all over the place. When you see it and have people in front of you that you respect, it generally works in a real positive way.”