It’s Monday morning, which means it’s time for me to let you guys know what’s been on my mind the past week. I think it’s all going to be football thoughts this time, because I have a few of them.

FOOTBALL THOUGHTS

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1. Gotta start with the Tigers’ portal class.

Last week’s Between the Columns had a thought that read, “The portal hasn’t been kind to the Tigers … yet.”

Well, Week 2 was pretty kind.

At this point last week, the entire class was Kevin Coleman and Santana Banner. Now the Tigers have their likely next starting quarterback (though I think Eli Drinkwitz is still going to have Sam Horn compete for the spot in the spring) and have the fourth-ranked class in the country without Beau Pribula or Keagen Trost ranked yet.

​I am a big proponent of preaching patience, especially in situations that can change rapidly, which the portal can.

Thankfully, we’ve hit the dead period for visits, so everything should slow down a bit this week, but the Tigers have done most of what they need at this point.

There will still be more additions, we know the Tigers are still trying to add to the offensive line after having Johnny Williams from West Virginia visit over the weekend, and there’s an expectation for another defensive back with Washington State corner Stephen Hall expected to visit in January and WSU safety Adrian Wilson still in conversations with the team.

But we’ve gotten through the majority of the work the Tigers are going to do in the past seven days.

I know it’s a long way off, but maybe next year we can all just stay a little more calm if the first few days don’t go very well.

Turns out the Tigers are doing pretty great in the portal and have set themselves up well to have another successful season next year, even though everyone was freaking out at the start.

That was going to be a later thought, but with Pribula announcing last night, it had to jump right to the top.

The rest of the football thoughts aren’t going to be as Mizzou related as normal.

2. There are rarely ever going to be 12 teams that are true national contenders. There were rarely ever four in the old setup.

This is something I’ve harped on in my personal life for a while and when given the chance to write columns at other jobs.

There were a lot of bad games this weekend.

Oh, it’s so clear now that Indiana and SMU didn’t belong in the playoff. Indiana lost 27-17 and looked worse than that, and SMU lost 38-10. Wow, neither of them should have ever been there and the CFP should just be an SEC Tournament that invites Oregon and Ohio State once in a while.

Except Tennessee tied for the worst loss of the opening round at 42-17. I know many of you – if not all of you – were pleased to see Tennessee get its doors blown off, that’s fine, I’ve got no issue there. But the No. 3 team in the Big 10 destroyed the No. 3 team in the SEC, so maybe including South Carolina or Alabama or Ole Miss wouldn’t have been an inherently more interesting product.

Would they have been better than SMU? Maybe. Or maybe …

The rest of Between the Columns is for subscribers only so head on over to the thread for the rest of my thoughts.