By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor
English poet William Blake wrote it:
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright
In the forests of the night—–
(MIZFB)—The Missouri Tigers, depleted on and off the football field, have wrapped up an 8-5 season with a defensive effort against Virginia that is easily overlooked by the lackluster offense in a 13-7 loss..
Virginia dominated the clock, holding the ball for almost 39 minutes with long drives for its touchdown and two field goals. The game-deciding touchdown came at the end of a 19-play, 75 yard drive that ran ten minutes off the clock. Missouri went 0-5 against ranked teams this year. Virginia went into the game at number 20. Missouri’s win at Arkansas let them barely back in the top 25.
The departure of offensive coordinator Kirby Moore to become the head coach at Washington State left Drinkwitz in the position of calling the plays and there are those who think he showed the need for a quick Moore replacement, which Missouri has done by signing Michigan’s offensive coordinator Chip Linsey. Mizzou also has lured Jack Breske away from Tennessee to be the Tiger president of player personnel and recruiting. More important to the playing field was he exit of tight ends coach Derham Cato
Also important to the product on the field is the departure of tight ends coach Derham Cato and assistant offensive line coach Jack Abercrombie. And the guy who works with players in the weight room has left: Malcolm Hardmon, the assistant director of football athletic performance.
With the portal opening Thursday, the defection of Brad Larrondo could be the toughest loss. As the GM and CEO of Every True Tiger Brands, the marketing arm of the football program, Larrondo has been The Guy who set up Missouri’s NIL operations. He has negotiated revenue sharing and third-party NIL funding, distributing money to the moneyball athletes attracted to Missouri while also staying within the sending cap.
The portal is open for only two weeks and presumably Larrondo made plenty of arrangements to take advantage of it before he left. But his successor will have little time to put his stamp on the program.
Fortunately, Drinkwitz has some cash to buy good replacements. His new contract provides him with $54 Millon more dollars to hire assistants.
More than a dozen players were not on the game roster, four with injuries and others headed to the portal. Most of them were backups.
The defense did not wear down despite all the time on the field but the defensive scheme against Virginia’s third and fourth down plays seemed to be missing. The fact that Virginia had to convert fifteen of them indicates the Tigers had them where they wanted them but couldn’t close the deal. Missouri went into the game ranked 19th nationally in third down stops but let Virginia converted thirteen of them on 23 attempts. Mizzou, on the other hand, made it work only three of twelve times. Missouri never converted a fourth down in three tries. Virginia did it in two out of four.
The offense, after scoring on the first drive, was shut out the rest of the way. Matt Zollars again showed promise, especially leading a desperation last -minute drive to tie the game. He was taken out with one play left after banging his head on the field during a tackle. His replacement , Brett Brown threw a pass that was intercepted in the end zone.,
One question many fans will want answer to is why Drinkwitz didn’t use Ahmad Hardy more. Hardy reeled of a 42-yard run in the first possession but carried the ball only fourteen times after than. He finished with 89 yards and the all-time single season rushing record. Some fans were displeased and there appeared to be times on the sidelines when Hardy was chafing at not being on the field. Missouri was undefeated in games this year in which Hardy carried the ball at least twenty times. One sportswriter says the social media was “off the charts” because of his absence. In all of Missouri’s losses this year, Hardy had the ball less than twenty times.
(MIZBB)—Now it’s up to Dennis Gates and the men’s basketball Tigers to do something the football Tigers couldn’t in their season—beat a good team. The Tigers have finished their nonconference schedule 10-3. They open SEC play at home Saturday against Florida with road games against Kentucky and Mississippi. Florida is 8-4; Kentucky is 9-4 and Mississippi is 7-5.
Vanderbilt is undefeated in a dozen games. Georgia and LSU are 11-1.
The Tigers will have had two weeks to improve from their performance against 91-48 performance against Illinois that set some bad records. It was the worst loss since Dannis Gates has run the program. It was the worst loss in the 93 years the two schools have played each other and the fewest points scored since Arkansas whipped Missouri 87-43 in 2012. (ZOU)
(CHIEFS)—It’s going to be a long time for Missourians’ hurt to go away after the Chiefs decision to move to Kansas. It’s probably more politically emotional hurt than fan-support emotional hurt
. The turnout for the first Chiefs game after the announcement did not appear to be noticeably less. But one politician far from the conflict has weighed in with the observation that Chiefs Owner Clark Hunt is “the biggest Welfare King in America.” Congressman Brendan Boyle from Pennsylvania—where Chiefs coach Andy Reid built the career in Philadelphia that made him a great choice for Kansas City—said on social media, “Billions of taxpayer money going to this billionaire, while working people suffer. Just a disgrace.”
We can excuse Hunt for seeing it in a different way. “The benefit to the entire region will be monumental. A stadium of this caliber will put Kansas City in the running for Super Bowls, Final Fours, and other world class events. A brand new training facility and headquarters will allow the Chiefs to continue to attract top talent. And the vision for a new mixed-use district will rival that of any sports-anchored development anywhere in the country.”
There is no doubt about that. He would have said the same thing if the Chief stayed in Missouri, but Kansas simply outbid our side.
And in a sports world where some college quarterbacks prices might be reaching for five million dollars at their next university, our games have become nothing more than horses chasing carrots.
On the playing field, the Chiefs dropped to 6-10 on Christmas night’s loss to the Broncos. The Chiefs have lost ten more games nine times. They lost 14 in 2008 and 2012; a dozen in ’77,’78 and 2009. Eleven losses be the third in team history, back to back 11 loss years came in 1987 and ‘88.
The play the Raiders next Sunday for their last game until next August hen they meet the 2-14 Raiders. For the fist time in a decade, the team will have eight months to rest, recover, and regroup before they get back to football that counts.
The end of the year is filled with speculation about what Travis Kelce will do. He has equalled Hall of Famer Jerry Rice by receiving at least 800 yards a dozen times.
He is having a solid bounce-back season this year with 73 catches for 839 yards averaging 11.5 yards per catch, close to his career average of 12.1 yards.
He has promised to let the Chiefs know if he wants to be part of the team rebuilding or if is going to step aside before the draft season begins.
The Chiefs have signed yet another backup quarterback. With two QBs on the shelf, they need someone behind Chris Olodokun just in case.
The just in case person is Shane Buechele, who has been picked off of the Buffalo Bills Practice squad. He was with the chiefs in the 2021-2023 seasons and has never played in a real game. In three pre-season games ith the Chiefs he threw for nine touchdowns and six interceptions.
While it’s been confirmed that Minshew didn’t tear his ACL, providing a beacon of hope for Reid in Mahomes’ absence, he will miss time and was placed on Injured Reserve. Hence, the Chiefs need a new quarterback to join Chris Oladokun on the depth chart.
(BASEBALL)—Both of our teams took the holiday off. There were no transactions. Still no blockbuster deals.
—–A somber world of speed—
(NASCAR)—-NASCAR world still mourns the death of retired driver Greg Biffle and his family in a pre-Christas plane crash. Investigators say they’re recovered data recording devices but it will be sometime before the cause of the crash can be determined.
Fans are familiar with his on-track record, but his off-track accomplishments weren’t widely circulated until we read his obituary (as is the case with many pro athletes—and people in general). He set up a foundation that gave grants to humane societies through America. He was a universal blood donor and after his racing career he got into hurricane relief and delivered fuel to stranded Floridians and then helping find places for animals displaced from their shelters. It is said he “risked his life” helping Norh Carolinians caught in Hurricane Helene.
A celebration of his life is being planned.
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As we go to press with this entry, we’ve gotten word that a fire that destroyed the home of Denny Hamlin’s parents in North Carolina killed his father, Dennis, and severely injured his mother, Mary Lou, who is under intensive treatment at a burn center in Winston-Salem. Officials say both had gotten out the house but had suffered “catastrophic” injuries. The damage to the house is so severe, officials say, that it might be some time before a cause is determined.
Denny, the driver, successfully pursued his 60th NASCAR victory this year and when he got it, he emotionally discussed the importance of the win to his father Dennis, who was in poor health and remarked that 2025 was his father’s last change to see his son with the NASCAR Cup. Denny made the final four for the final race but Kyle Larson won the Cup.
Young Denny used to sit on his father’s lap watching races on television. He started racing go-kart, when he was seven, and won his first race. Dennis had a little trailer-making business that Denny worked in during high school. His father formed a family-owned race team.
The family scrimped and saved—and borrowed—to keep Denny’s young career going up until he caught the eye of Joe Gibbs Racing and signed on for the big time. Denny remembered everything his parentsdid for him on the way up. One day, Dennis Hamlin told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Denny announce to his father, “You’re done working and you’re moving to Charlotte.” When the elder Hamlin responded that he wasn’t going anywhere, the younger Hamlin set him straight by handing him the keys to a new house and told him, “It’s finished, take your clothes, sell the business. Mom works for me now. It’s set. You’re going. You’ve retired.”
Dennis Hamlin was 75.
(INDYCAR)—A prominent color scheme will be back at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2026 and its return brings one of the most exciting days in Speedway history to mind—-and the voice of a Missourian who fed that excitement who made it part of legend.
The colors of Sunoco Oil will be on a car next year for the first time in decades—and that is another story.
His name was Tom Carnegie, who grew up as a boy named Tom Kenagy in Raytown. He was quite a high school athlete until a polio virus affected the strength of his legs and forced him to turn his thoughts to broadcasting. He went to William Jewell College and while there he went to work at KITE Radio in Kansas City. He was the public address announcer for the schools sports events. He went to Indiana, where a station manager encouraged him to change his name to Carnegie and not long after, to Indianapolis.
He was the public address announcer of the historic 1954 high school basetball championship game in which tiny Milan High School upset big Muncie Central, the game on which the movie “Hoosiers’ was based—with Tom doing a cameo.
Let’s go back to 1972 and Mark Donahue’s McLaren that is in the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
Somewhere in thousands of slides shot at the Speedway that I don’t have the time or the patience to unpack from one of the several boxes of slides is this car on the track.
This car represents a historic part of the Speedway story in several ways.
First: It is the first car owned by Roger Penske to win the 500. He’s had nineteen winners since.
Second: Speed. You have to be in or near middle age or beyond to remember when Indianapolis race cars did not have wings. 1972 was the first year the rules allowed wings, big ones, that led to he incredible one-day jump in speeds.
Rain washed out the first day of qualifying, but on the second day, drivers demolished Peter Revson’s track record of 178.696 mph from 1971 time after time after time, beginning when Bill Vukovich II set the new one-lap record at 185.797. But he crashed on his second lap and had to qualify later in the rebuilt car. .
Later, after another rain shower stopped running, Joe Leonard turned four laps at 185.223, a record for a four lap, ten mile run. Mario Andretti smashed that record at 187.617.
Longtime track announcer Tom Carnegie’s bass voice had exclaimed “it’s new traaack record” several times that afternoon when Bobby Unser went out with the crowd anticipating something special. And boy, was it.
The first lap crushed Andretti’s record—194.932, the first lap in track history over 190.
The second lap: “You won’t believe it!” said the great voice on the PA system. 196.036, another new track record.
Lap three: “And it’s still going up! Forty-five and 91 hundredths of a second! 196.6781
And then the third lap: 196.678. A third new track record.
Lap four was “only” 196.121.
The four lap average (“It’s new all-time speed record”) 195.940.
The seventeen-mile jump in qualifying speed remains the record these 53 years later. Many expected the 200-mile an hour barrier would fall the next year, but it five more years before Tom Sneva did it—with Carnegie fueling the crowd’s excitement as Sneva set records on each his four laps.
Unser’s speed stood up despite challenges from Revson, who put his McLaren next Unser’s Gurney Eagle at 192.885 and Donehue put his McLaren on the outside of the front row at 191.408.
Tom Carnegie died in 2011. The Indianapolis TV station where he’d become an institution put together a 20-minute tribute that included Tom remembering that historic day. It comes about 10:40 into the program.
Tom Carnegie: The Voice Remembered
One of these days I’ll dig out the interview did with him where talks about his Missouri roots.
Donahue’s Penske teammate, Gary Bettenhausen (the Bettenhausen name is part of IndyCar legend) led for 138 of the race’s 200 laps before mechanical failure took him out. Donahue took the lead with thirteen laps left and gave Roger Penske his landmark win. It also was the first time a McLaren chassis had won the 500. Al Unser Sr., finished second, coming one position short of being the first driver to win three 500s in a row—he later won two more times.
Mark Donahue and Roger Penske had a special bond. Donahue was an engineer who knew how to set up his cars and win with them. He raced everything from Porsches and Ferraris to Mustangs and American Motors Javelins in numerous serieses before stepping away from the sport’s full-time demands. But In August, 1975 he drove a Penske Porsche to a closed-course world record speed of 221.120 on the Talladega Speedway.
He was pulled back to full-time racing when Penske tried Formula 1. He ran a couple of races late in 1974 and was in the new Penske F1 car in ’75. The car didn’t work out so Penske switched to a March chassis. He went to Austria to run the new car in the Austrian Grand Prix and crashed badly but appeared to be unhurt. But he had a serious head injury and lapsed into a coma and died the next day, August 19.
Roger Penske owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar today. He also fields cars in NASCAR.
McLaren is a powerhouse team in Formula 1 and one of its drivers, Lando Norris, won the championship while his teammate, Oscar Piastri, was third. McLaren does not build cars for the 500 or for IndyCar but does have a team led by one of the most popular drivers in the series, Pato O’Ward, the runner-up in this year’s points chase.
The fastest qualifying run at the Brickyard still be longs to Arie Luyendyk, who had a hot lap of 239.260 and a four-lap average of 236.986 in 1996.
Now, thirty years later, Mark Donahue’s sponsor returns to Roger Penske’s track.
Chip Ganassi Racing, Penske Racing’s biggest long-term rival is bringing back the familiar colors for Kyffin Simpson. Sunoco considers itself the largest independent fuel distributor in the country. It’s the official fuel for IndyCar and NASCAR.
The front wings are bigger. The rear wing is smaller. Most important this car is far safer for Simpson hat he Donahue museum piece was in its day. The cockpit/windscreen protects drivers from flying debris in crashes and does not expose their heads to restraining fence poles or other impacts as the one that killed Donahue.
They’re a little slower but are inching closer to Luyendyk’s record. And, as was the case more than fifty years ago, they make incredible sounds and provide breathtaking racing.
And in four months they’ll be on the great track at Indianapolis. History and memory will come together with the past and its legends.
(Photo Credits: Kelce—Facbook; Donahue car—Bob Priddy; New Sunoco Car—Ganassi Racing; Dennis Hamlin—NASCAR.com)
