BenFred: Evansville should reconsider its petty stance, do the right thing on Mizzou transfer Dru Smith

QUESTION: In you opinion is there a chance Drew Lock is a better NFL QB than what he has shown at the collegiate level?

MATTER: Yes, absolutely. We see it happen all the time. What did Tom Brady win in college? Aaron Rodgers didn't do much in college. Patrick Mahomes put up big numbers at Texas Tech. His final year there he beat Stephen F Austin, Baylor, TCU, Louisiana Tech and Kansas. That’s it.

QUESTION: How do you think the loss of Jontay Porter for the season changes Coach Martin's offense this year? Who will take up the slack for Porter?

MATTER: There is no one player who can reproduce everything Porter brings to the team: inside scoring, outside scoring, rebounding, passing, ball-handling, shot-blocking. It puts more pressure on the young guards to be impact scorers. It puts more pressure on Jeremiah Tilmon to stay on the floor and be a machine on the glass. It puts more on Keivn Puryear to be a better scorer and presence inside. It puts more on backup forwards like Mitchell Smith to enhance their role. Everybody's going to have to elevate their game. It’s a major blow, much bigger than last year’s team losing Michael Porter Jr. This team might have to play smaller at times, but do we know if they have the shooting to do excel offensively with a smaller lineup? Can a smaller lineup thrive defensively in the SEC? So many unknowns with this team now.

QUESTION: With Jontay Porter out, what do you see the chances are of actually making the NCAA tourney? Do you see Mizzou being in the bottom half of the SEC this year?

MATTER: I had picked Mizzou seventh in the SEC with Jontay, so yes, I would venture to say they're definitely a bottom-half team without him. There's just a lot of unknowns with this team now. To say they're an NCAA team is putting blind faith in a lot of players doing things we have no idea if they're capable of doing this year. This looks like an NIT team to me, maybe 10th or 11th in a very deep league. At this point, I'd put Vandy and Alabama ahead of Missouri. Maybe even South Carolina. Jontay might not have been the best scorer or most talented player in the league, but you could have made the case he was the most valuable. I don't see this team completely falling off and winning only eight or nine games. But .500 is more likely now.

QUESTION: How did Jalen Knox slip through the cracks in recruiting? He may be the best true frosh receiver in the nation.

MATTER: I'm not sure I'd say he's the best in the nation. Purdue’s Rondale Moore and Alabama’s Jaylen Waddle come to mind. Either way, Knox wasn't exactly off the radar. He had offers from Wisconsin, Baylor, Nebraska. He's the exact kind of player out of Texas that Missouri can land and can build their roster around. Three stars but not a priority target for the Longhorns or Aggies. Also, he played multiple positions in high school, so some schools might not have known for sure how he'd fit into their offense. But their loss is Missouri's gain. He has the looks of being a special player for years to come.

QUESTION: If Dru Smith is eligible this year do you see Jordan Geist bumping over to more of the shooting guard position? People have said Geist is thought to be more of a combo guard, and Dru Smith is a point guard. But Martin seems to love Geist, Geist now knows his system, and Martin likes to have his point guard defend the other team’s point guard the length of the floor which suits Geist well given his scrappiness.

MATTER: Actually, they see Smith as more of the combo guard. He's a really good shooter, the best from 3-point range in the Missouri Valley last year. He shot nearly 58 percent from the floor and 48 percent from 3. If anything, he's the guy you want taking more shots. Geist is the point guard, though Smith might be the better defender on the ball. It will all depend on matchups. If either of the Smiths become eligible they'll get to handle the ball some, too, but Martin isn't going to move Geist off the ball exclusively. Dru Smith can play all three perimeter positions. I'm really interested to see what kind of impact he has in a high major conference, whether that's this year or next.

QUESTION:  On several running plays, the Memphis backs were several yards down the field before a Mizzou defender made contact. What's the concern level that Snell channels his inner Tony Sands and runs wild?

 MATTER: The big difference between Memphis and Kentucky is that Memphis has a potent passing game - and Mizzou's defense had to be wary of those downfield threats and Brady White's arm. Against Kentucky, you can stack the box more often because there's not that same threat in the passing game. Either way, that was one of Memphis' worst offensive performances in three years under Mike Norvell in terms of yards per play. Mizzou's defense wasn't great but good enough to win.

QUESTION: This may be one of the biggest games of the Barry Odom era. A chance to beat a ranked team at home, coming off an offensive explosion with a somewhat rejuvenated fan base in attendance. I realize Kentucky is good, especially defensively, but what does a win/loss say about the status of the MU program?

MATTER: I'm not sure I follow your part about the rejuvenated fan base. There were 52,000 here for the Memphis game - about six thousand fewer than were here for the Georgia game, which means the Mizzou portion of the crowd was about the same. UGA bought its entire allotment of tickets plus clearly more from the secondary market. There weren't nearly as many Memphis fans at the game. I found this surprising: This is Kentucky's best team in more than a decade yet UK used less than 1,000 of its allotted tickets from MU at last check.

QUESTION: Will our secondary be ready to make to make a statement on Saturday? The longest pass Terry Wilson of Kentucky threw against Vanderbilt last week was for 17 yards. Not exactly a threat. Also, any chance we see their other quarterback Gunner Hoak?

MATTER: Mark Stoops has said he plans to play multiple quarterbacks. Clearly their confidence in Terry Wilson is shaken some. He's been accurate but not terribly efficient or explosive. Kentucky's the kind of team that doesn't want to throw much unless it has to throw. This game is more about Missouri's front seven on defense than its secondary. If Missouri can control the line of scrimmage and hold Benny Snell to an average day or less-than-average day, you force UK to do what it's less comfortable doing, putting the ball in the air. Missouri's defense should have some favorable matchups.

QUESTION: With Jontay being injured, do you think he'll be playing next year at Mizzou? If so, does that impact Jeremiah Tilmon's decision to stay through his Junior, or even Senior year?

 MATTER: First, players really don't make stay-or-go decisions based on what their teammates are doing. It's about their future, their draft stock, their bank account - not what someone else is doing. Two, I think we've seen the last of Jontay in a Mizzou uniform. He already cost himself a lot of money by coming back to school once. He'll have time to recover and prepare for the 2019 draft. I can't imagine he'll be 100 percent by next June, but if that means he has to be a second-round pick, there could be less risk in that than returning for school another year, delaying the start of your pro career and leaving yourself vulnerable to further injury while playing for free. If you haven't noticed yet, the Porters have injury history, especially when it comes to knees. It might be in his best interest to start earning a paycheck as soon as possible.

QUESTION: Do you think the SEC will ever move toward 16 member schools? I remember there being some movement on it a few years back but conference realignment has seemed to die down. What do you think the mechanism would be to trigger the next round of conference musical chairs?

MATTER: The conference TV contracts come up in a few years and if anything launches another round of musical chairs it would be those negotiations. Right now, things seem pretty stable. You don't really hear much buzz about leagues looking to expand or teams looking to leave. UCF is the school I wonder about. Their enrollment is huge. They've developed a strong football program and a rising hoops program. I could see them adding some value to the SEC or ACC in terms of pure football growth if either wants to expand. But here's the hang-up: Adding UCF or other AAC team like Houston or Memphis wouldn't add more TV markets, because you've already got those markets covered. The two Oklahoma schools would be attractive for the SEC, but for those programs, they're safer in the Big 12.

QUESTION: Does Albert Okwuegbunam leave after this year for the NFL? I'm thinking he does but feel another year will do him good. Besides Lock, any other players on this years team can make an NFL team?

MATTER: Albert has got a big decision to make. When he's at his best, he looks like a prototypical NFL tight end prospect. He was shaky the first month of the season. Drops, fumbles, penalties. When he plays like he did against Memphis, he looks like a guy who should be a first- or second-round pick in 2019. That speed is elite for a 270-pound tight end. I think he'd benefit from another year in a pro-style offense that requires him to actually run the kind of routes he'll have to run in the NFL, but if he gets first-round feedback, he should go get paid.