Spring football update: 4/5

While most of Missouri's players with lingering injuries returned to practice, three impact players will miss the remaining two weeks of spring football.

Offensive lineman Nate Crawford had a procedure on his lower back on April 4, and the team "hopes" to have him back for summer conditioning. Crawford had back surgery last June, as well. He was held out during the second week of spring practice with back soreness, but at the time, Barry Odom said it was not serious. The first practice he missed (that was open to the media) was March 17th, a Thursday; Odom said Crawford was expected to be back that Saturday, March 19th.

Crawford's injury makes it more likely that Missouri will have only eight healthy scholarship offensive linemen for the duration of spring practice. Clay Rhodes was again not at practice, and Odom did not have an update nor a timeline for Rhodes' final status.

Missouri also lost two defensive ends for the rest of spring. Charles Harris had his right shoulder scoped to repair a labrum; Nate Howard had a procedure to repair soft tissue in his left knee. Harris' injury is his second shoulder procedure since the end of the 2015 season, but the team said this was planned.

Odom said Harris' first procedure was on his left shoulder; they wanted him to come back and go through a portion of spring football before getting the other shoulder scoped.

(Sidenote: Labrum injuries in offensive and defensive linemen are extremely common.)

Both Harris and Howard are expected to be back for the start of summer conditioning.

Defensive tackle Terry Beckner Jr. and safety Tavon Ross, who both suffered ACL injuries during the 2015 season, returned to practice on Tuesday. However, they are still limited and being held out of contact drills, but for the first time this spring, they were dressed out.

Also returning in a limited fashion were walk-on offensive lineman Jonah Dubinski and walk-on safety Isaiah Pierre.

Receivers Chris Black, Johnathon Johnson and Ray Wingo, and defensive tackle AJ Logan all returned for a full practice after being limited by various minor injuries prior to spring break.

This week, the NCAA is voting on the SEC's proposal to ban off-campus satellite recruiting camps. The proposal, it seems, is expected to fail; the only other conference to publicly support the movement is the ACC.

If it does not pass, then the SEC's ban on satellite camps would end on May 29th. At that point, the gates surrounding Columbia (metaphorically) would open up, and Missouri would have the opportunity to not just return to having camps in St. Louis and Kansas City -- as it did in the Big 12 years -- but potentially ones in other states.

Odom said his staff is preparing for both scenarios.

"The SEC has a rule, and I'm trying not to smile too much, but you've got to abide by it," Odom said. "But also from a planning standpoint, you better have things lined up if it passes or if it doesn't. So we've worked hard over the past couple of months, working on where we're going to go for our recruiting base, how we're going to get that set, when we're going to do it and try to, Plan A and Plan B.

"We're going to be waiting around the phone on Friday, or whenever we get the results, and get ready to put it into action."

A source told PowerMizzou.com that the staff has already prepared for multiple camps in Texas and ones in Louisiana and Atlanta, in addition to returning to St. Louis and Kansas City.

When asked about potential destinations on Tuesday, Odom said just to look at where the Tigers recruit.

"Obviously the state of Missouri is really important," Odom said. "Where ever we did camps in St. Louis and Kansas City, which are huge for us, and then the state of Texas and the Gulf Coast region, we've got to hit all those areas if we can."

No, quarterback Marvin Zanders isn't changing positions. But the redshirt sophomore quarterback from Jacksonville, Fla., is finally getting an opportunity to showcase his running ability in a position battle that remains up in the air.

Zanders is now wearing an orange jersey, which allows some contact. Typically, quarterbacks at Mizzou wear green jerseys in practice, limiting them to two-hand touch instead of hard contact.

"Marvin, I think, you look always at how to utilize each guy's skillset the best," Odom said. "For Marvin, playing the quarterback position, there's times where he's able to get out of trouble and run a little bit, out on the perimeter. Defensively, for us, we've got to do a great job if you have an athletic quarterback that is like Marvin, that you're in position. A one-hand tag isn't necessarily a tackle."

So it works both ways. Zanders can better show his entire skill-set, and the defense can also prepare for mobile quarterbacks.

I'll have a longer story on Zanders and how he feels the quarterback competition is truly open.

-- Sophomore LB Terez Hall said he is currently the No. 1-SAM, jumping returning starter Donavin Newsom. If you think this is supposed to be a message to Newsom, think again: Hall believes he'll continue to keep that job atop the depth chart.

"Recently, I just got the job and everything like that," Hall said. "But it's still competing. Every day, we're still giving up reps. But I just recently got the job. I plan on keeping it and actually making a big-time presence in the defense and just having more of a physical standpoint."

Newsom was requested by media members after practice but was missed in the shuffle.

-- I spoke with cornerbacks Anthony Hines and John Gibson today, for a story later on about DeMontie Cross' defense. A big thing they both reiterated (which Aarion Penton first said) is that the corners are almost exclusively playing man-to-man now. It will be interesting to see how the entire defense comes together when we can actually watch 11-on-11 football.

-- Corey Fatony said he's trying to help Tucker McCann like Andrew Baggett helped him last year: "Baggett kind of brought me in, kind of showed me the ropes and helped me out. I'm really trying to do that for him, too."

-- I asked Terez Hall about how the offensive line looks so far. Here's his response: "Honestly, man, our offensive line, they ready. Compared to last year, I feel like we're a whole lot better. You know, depth-wise, guys are gonna come back. And they are putting in the work. Fact is, we've got offensive linemen. They're gonna work. I ain't even worried about that."

I followed-up by asking Hall to expand on the "compared to last year" comment:

"More physical. They come to attack you now," Hall said. "One-on-one, like scrimmages and everything like that, they come to attack me instead of waiting on me to attack them the whole time. Yeah, they got a whole lot more aggressive."

-- Finally, I asked Zanders (Lock did not stop for interviews) about how the offense is looking, as sources have said they've looked much improved from last spring.

"We look way better than we did last spring," Zanders said. "Last spring was kind of .... it was scary. I think with the new staff and everything, with the attitude they're bringing in and just the demeanor with how we're playing now, the tempo and how we're going about things differently than last season is helping things tremendously.

"I mean, you can just see it in the scrimmages and the practices in general, from Day 1 to now, we practice and scrimmage a whole lot better than we have in recent times."