MIZZOU IN HOME/SEASON OPENERS
Mizzou has won two straight, and four of its last six, home opening games. Last year, the Tigers defeated Eastern Illinois (37-0) after downing Ball State (41-6) to open the home schedule for 2002. The last home opener that went awry was in 2001, when Gary Pinkel's first Tiger squad dropped a 20-13 game to visiting Bowling Green. Overall, MU is 78-30-4 in home openers (71.4%) Mizzou's track record is nearly just as good in season openers, as MU's alltime record in the first game of the year is 71-36-5 (65.6%). MU has won each of its last two season openers, opening with wins in 2002 and 2003 against Illinois, in neutral site games played in St. Louis. The last season opener that MU dropped was the aforementioned game against Bowling Green in 2001.

MU'S G.P. VS. ASU - IT'S A.G.
A.G., as in "All Good." What that means is that while Mizzou will be meeting Arkansas State for the first time ever on Saturday, Tiger Head Coach Gary Pinkel has coached against the Indians once before - and he came away with an impressive win. In only Pinkel's second year as a head coach, his 1992 Toledo squad opened its season with a 49-0 shellacking of Arkansas State, in Toledo, Ohio. That win kickstarted the Rockets to an 8-3 season. Pinkel is 3-0 overall against teams currently comprising the Sun Belt Conference. In addition to the win over Arkansas State, Pinkel has won a pair of games at MU against the league - A 41-40 overtime win against Middle Tennessee State last season, and a 44-7 triumph over Troy State in 2002.

TIGERS LOOKING TO EXTEND WIN STREAK AT 'THE ZOU'
Faurot Field - nicknamed 'The Zou' by the Tiger team last season - was a house of horrors for visiting teams in 2003 - a trend that the Tigers undoubtedly would like to continue this Saturday in its regular-season opener against Arkansas State. A win for MU Saturday would extend its win streak at The Zou to seven, as the Tigers went a perfect 6-0 there last season. That broke the old school record of five wins for most wins in a home season, and marked the first time since 1974 that MU was perfect at home. It also marked only the 12th time since the stadium opened in 1926 that MU went unbeaten and untied at home. MU's last home loss came in the 2002 finale vs. Kansas State. Mizzou's average margin of victory at home last season was a whopping 24.5 points, as MU outscored foes by a 271-124 margin in 6 games at Faurot in 2003. Included in last year's total was a 62-point outing against Texas Tech, which represents the most points ever scored by MU at Memorial Stadium.

HALFWAY HOME THE KEY FOR MU
A trend has developed under Gary Pinkel that shows the key to the game is very simple: Mizzou simply needs to take the lead into the lockerroom at halftime and it will likely have success Saturday. That's because under Pinkel, MU is 14-0 (including 8-0 last year) when it leads at halftime. Conversely, when MU trails at the half, they are 2-19, including 0-5 last year, since 2001.

MISSOURI DOESN'T BEAT MISSOURI ON PINKEL'S WATCH
When Mizzou commits mistakes (turnovers, penalties, etc...), MU Head Coach Gary Pinkel often refers to that as "Missouri beating Missouri." Fortunately for the Tigers' 4th-year skipper, that hasn't happened often at all. In fact, NCAA stats show that in Pinkel's time at Mizzou (from 2001), MU has had the fewest turnovers in the nation, by far. In the 36 games in the Pinkel regime, MU has committed just 41 turnovers. The next fewest during that same period is Minnesota and Northern Illinois, with 51 each. The next best team in the Big 12 is Oklahoma, who rates 9th-best nationally, at 57 turnovers. In 13 games last season, Mizzou led the nation with just 13 turnovers lost, a year after MU led the nation with just 12 turnovers in 2002 - setting a school record in the process for fewest in a year. Under Pinkel, Mizzou has committed zero turnovers in 13 of 36 ballgames. Here's the breakdown by year:

GAMES UNDER PINKEL WITH NO TURNOVERS BY MIZZOU
2003 - (7) - Illinois, at Ball State, Middle Tennessee, at Kansas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Iowa State
2002 - (4) - Ball State, at Nebraska, at Texas Tech, Kansas
2001 - (2) - Nebraska, at Oklahoma State

TIGERS RANKED 10TH IN NCAA IN 2003 IN TURNOVER MARGIN
Going hand-in-hand with MU's mistake-free offensive attack, the defense last year forced 24 turnovers. The 24 turnovers gained, coupled with only 13 given away, gave MU a turnover margin of +0.9 per game in '03, which ranked MU 10th in the nation in that category. As one would guess, the Tigers held a solid advantage in the ever-important points off turnover category in 2003, as MU's 24 turnovers gained resulted directly in 76 points, while opponents scored just 20 points on MU's 13 giveaways.

TIGERS TO DEBUT NEW-LOOK DEFENSE
With 9 starters returning on the defensive side of the ball, how could Missouri have a new-look defense in 2004? It's all in the scheme of things. Mizzou used a 4-4, or 4-2-5 base look primarily in the first 3 years of Gary Pinkel's tenure, but after Defensive Coordinator Matt Eberflus analyzed things in the off-season, he felt that moving to a more traditional 4-3 set would benefit the types of athletes that the defense has been accumulating recently. Eberflus used some 4-3 during the 2003 season, and Tiger coaches felt that was one of the reasons in the amount of improvement seen on that side of the ball last year. Mizzou improved from ranking 81st in scoring defense nationally in 2002 (29.3 ppg) to 38th in 2003 (22.1 ppg), and by all accounts in the pre-season, the move to the new set should reap even more benefits. The biggest change involves the linebacking corp. With three outstanding athletes on the field, in senior WLB James Kinney, sophomore MLB Dedrick Harrington, and sophomore SLB David Richard, the middle should be in good hands. And with MU's strong front four drawing praise in the pre-season (MU's defensive line was rated the 4th-best D-Line in the nation by Lindy's and the 6th-best D-Line in the nation by Athlon), that should free up the secondary to play aggressively.

OH, CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN(S)
Mizzou announced during the spring that the four team captains for the 2004 season would be senior LB James Kinney, senior DL Atiyyah Ellison, senior TB Beau Viehmann and junior QB Brad Smith. This marks Kinney's 3rd-straight year of captaincy, and the 2nd-straight year for Smith, with Ellison and Viehmann having the honor for the first time each. Gary Pinkel also recently named captains for each of MU's special forces (special teams) units. They are as follows:

PUNT TEAM - C Zach Strom; S Justin Scott
PUNT RETURN TEAM - CB Ryan Edwards; S Jason Simpson
KICKOFF TEAM - LB Henry Sweat; S Quincy Wade
KICKOFF RETURN TEAM - TB Beau Viehmann; CB Shirdonya Mitchell
PAT/FG TEAM - DL Phil Pitts; TE Clint Matthews

SHORT WEEK FOLLOWS ARKANSAS STATE GAME
Following MU's season opener this Saturday against Arkansas State, the Tigers won't have much time to regroup and prepare for their Sept. 9th game at Troy, which will be an evening game shown nationally on ESPN2. For the media, Monday media day will take place next week like always (there are no holidays in football!!), with the time being moved up to earlier in the day. Stay tuned for details, or be sure to contact the media relations office with questions.

BRAD SMITH DRAWING NATIONAL ATTENTION
Mizzou's All-Everything QB Brad Smith has certainly established himself as one of the top players in the country in the last two years. He's been labeled as a top-10 pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate by most publications, and rightfully so, in our opinion. This past weekend saw quite a bit of positive national publicity for the humble signal caller, as he was prominently featured in two highly-visible entities. First, Saturday night, in the pre-game show for the USC-Virginia Tech game on ESPN, Smith was listed as their number-two Heisman candidate. The very next day, a very nice feature on Smith ran in the Sunday New York Times, written by Pete Thamel. Not only was there a big feature and photo in the sports section, but Smith was featured with a full-color photo on the front page of the entire newspaper that day! The focus of the NYT article revolved around the huge impact Smith has had on the Tiger program, and a quick look at the MU individual career records charts in these pages shows exactly that. Smith enters the 2004 season already holding the school career record in total offense (6,745 yards), 5th in passing yardage (4,310 yards), 6th in rushing yardage (2,435 yards) and touchdowns scored (26), and 9th in scoring (160 points).

SMITH SET TO MAKE A MOVE ON NCAA ALLTIME LIST
Brad Smith enters the 2004 season with 2,435 rushing yards in his previous two seasons, which is just 764 yards shy of breaking the MU career rushing record of 3,198 established just last season by TB Zack Abron. If he averages the 97.4 yards per game that he's put up thus far, he would own the record sometime in game number eight. Every rushing yard he accumulates this year will get him closer to the top of the NCAA rushing record for a quarterback. He's still got quite a bit to go to reach the record of 3,895 set by Antwaan Randle El of Indiana (1998-2001), but he is on pace to do it. Again, if Smith was to match his per-game average of 97.4 yards per game the rest of the way, he would need about 15 games to surpass Randle El's mark. Smith ranks 19th entering the 2004 season on the NCAA's quarterback career rushing yardage chart. He needs 25 yards to move into the No. 18 spot on the list, and 99 to pass fellow Tiger Corby Jones, who ranks 17th on the chart, with his 2,533 yards amassed from 1995-98. Smith's rushing total of 1,406 yards last season was the 4th-most ever in a season by a quarterback, behind only Beau Morgan of Air Force (1,494 in 1996), Stacey Robinson of Northern Illinois (1,443 in 1989) and Jamaal Lord of Nebraska (1,412 in 2002).

TIGERS OWNED 4TH QUARTER IN 2003
Most every team in football focuses on how it plays late in the game, but Mizzou really turned it up a notch, if you will, in the 4th quarter last year. In 13 games last season, MU held a 136-54 scoring advantage in the 4th period. That was a nice improvement from the slight 88-68 edge they held in the 4th quarter during the 2002 season, and an otherworldly advance from an eye-popping 102-47 scoring deficit the Tigers faced in the 4th quarter in 2001.

JAMES KINNEY TACKLES A DATE WITH HISTORY
With each tackle, senior linebacker James Kinney will inch closer and closer to the school career tackles record of 415 held by former Tiger standout (and current Iowa State assistant coach) DeMontie Cross (from 1994-96). Kinney enters his final go-around needing only 94 stops to surpass the mark, and that certainly seems likely, given the fact that he's registered over 140 stops in each of the last two seasons. Kinney, a pre-season candidate for both the Butkus and Lombardi awards this year, has developed nicely into a leader of a defense that made big strides last year. The Tiger defenders look to take an even bigger step in 2004, after becoming one of the Big 12's most improved units a year ago. With the permanent move to the 4-3 alignment, the pre-season has been an impressive one for Kinney and his squad. Just how impressive? Each day in practice, Tiger coaches keep score for the offense and defense when they are scrimmaging and going against each other in almost any drill. Whichever side has the most points at the end of the day gets to wear the black practice jerseys the next day. The defense took over the black jerseys in the first two or three practices of the fall, and has yet to relinquish them, heading into preparation for Arkansas State. Kinney, who had 147 tackles a year ago, has 322 career tackles entering the 2004 season. That ranks him 10th on the MU career charts, and he'd need to average just 8.5 tackles per game in an 11-game season to break the school record. His total also ranks him 5th among the NCAA active career tackles leaders.

MANY NEW FACES TO LEARN FOR 2004
The start of each new season is always exciting, in terms of watching what new players will step up and earn playing time for the year. A quick check of the depth chart shows that Tiger fans will have plenty of new faces to learn for the season, as there are currently five players who will be making starts Saturday against Arkansas State in their first games as Tigers. On offense, a trio of redshirt freshmen are slated to start. Center Adam Spieker, weakside tackle Tyler Luellen and tight end Martin Rucker all earned starting nods in the pre-season. Spieker and Luellen were expected to challenge for starting nods, and they didn't disappoint in the offseason, nor in fall camp. They'll have big shoes to fill, as they will be replacing longtime standouts A.J. Ricker and Rob Droege, who helped pave the way for Mizzou to lead the Big 12, and rank 6th nationally, in rushing in 2003. Rucker was possibly the biggest surprise of fall camp. Not that he played well, because he definitely turned heads last year during his redshirt year in practice. The surprise is that he moved all the way up the depth chart from the No. 4 spot on the depth chart entering fall camp to earn the starting nod. It was quite a feat, considering that he missed the vast majority of the spring season due to a shoulder injury that required corrective surgery. One newcomer will start on defense and one specialist will be new to the scene, as well. Sophomore SLB David Richard will be part of MU's new defensive look, as he earned a starting nod after impressive spring and fall camps. Richard came to MU as a tailback (he led Michigan State in rushing as a true freshman before transferring to Mizzou after a coaching change there), and he switched to linebacker in the spring. It didn't take him long to pick things up, however, and he looks ready to provide a big impact for the Tiger defense in 2004. The placekicking duties will be held by junior transfer Joe Tantarelli. Tantarelli walked on to the team in the fall, and eventually worked his way up the depth chart into the starting spot. He is orginally from Santa Rosa, Calif., and most recently attended Glendale Community College. Tantarelli will look to replace departed kicker Mike Matheny, who proved to be a very solid kicker for the Tigers over the past two years.

MORE ABOUT NEWCOMERS
In addition to the new faces that are starters, there are as many as eight newcomers who listed on the two-deep who should get plenty of playing time in 2004. There are five freshmen listed at No. 2 spots on the offense, with redshirt freshmen Marcus Woods (TB), Jason Ray (Z-WR) and Monte Wyrick (WG) leading the way. True freshmen William Franklin (X-WR) and Colin Brown (C) both made big enough impressions during fall camp to merit consideration for immediate playing time in 2004. Franklin was a highly-touted recruit out of the St. Louis, Mo., area, while Brown, a 6-7, 285-pound walkon from tiny Braymer, Mo., was a pleasant surprise. On defense, two newcomers are listed as backups currently. Sophomore transfer Brandon Massey holds down the strong safety No. 2 spot, while redshirt freshman Lorenzo Williams is listed at No. 2 on the depth at one defensive end position. Massey sat out last year after transferring to Mizzou from Michigan State, along with David Richard. Williams had an impressive fall camp, and looks to provide quality depth to MU's stout D-Line. On special teams, redshirt freshman Alex Woodley is listed as part of the No. 1 kickoff return unit, and he is slated to return kicks, along with senior Shirdonya Mitchell.

GROUND ATTACK RETOOLS AFTER LEADING BIG 12 IN RUSHING IN 2003
Hoping to get to the point where they are merely reloading instead of rebuilding, the Tiger ground attack hopes to equal its smashing success of 2003, when MU led the Big 12 Conference in rushing, and ranked 6th nationally, with an average of 237.46 yards per game. That was quite an historical achievement for MU, as you had to go back to 1960 for the last time that Mizzou won a conference rushing title! Lost from that rushing attack are key cogs Zack Abron, A.J. Ricker and Rob Droege. Abron left here as the school's career rushing leader, with 3,198 yards, while Ricker and Droege were mainstays on the line for years, with Ricker establishing a school record by making 47 consecutive starts at center. Also gone from the line are Cliff Young, who started 12 games last year at guard, and Steven Sanchez, who started 7 games at tackle. The cupboard isn't exactly bare, however, as returning to the mix are veteran linemen Tony Palmer, Scott Paffrath and Joe Gianino. Palmer has started 19 games over the past two seasons at guard, and was named pre-season 1st-Team All-Big 12 by The Sporting News, and while Paffrath (18 career starts at tackle) and Gianino (12) might not be listed officially as returning starters, they have plenty of experience. That will serve the line well, as a pair of green, but extremely talented, redshirt freshmen are slated to start, in center Adam Spieker and tackle Tyler Luellen. Junior tailback Damien Nash is all set to take over the load for the ground attack, and based on the performance he had during fall camp, he's likely to have a big year, after rushing for 462 yards and 5 TDs a year ago in a reserve role. He'll be backed up by exciting redshirt freshman Marcus Woods, who has been impressive from day one, and who closed the spring practice period by rushing for 109 yards and 1 TD on only 11 carries in the annual spring game. There's also this guy named Brad Smith. He wears #16. He can run the ball a little, too.