Spring football update: 4/8

Three (mostly) new injuries to report after Friday’s spring practice. Held out of action for the day were linebacker Joey Burkett, running back Ryan Williams and safety Cam Hilton.

We’ll start with the easiest to explain. Hilton has another hamstring injury, head coach Barry Odom said, although he didn’t know if it’s the same hamstring that limited Hilton before spring break. Either way, Odom said that they are being very careful with the sophomore safety-turned-receiver-turned-safety.

As for Williams, it’s both a knee and an ankle injury, but it isn’t supposed to be serious.

“(Williams) had an ankle one play, knee the next play,” Odom said. “Expect him to go tomorrow.”

Odom wasn’t specific about Burkett.

“Joe got dinged up a little bit yesterday in practice,” Odom said. “He should be ready to go, should be cleared tomorrow.”

Odom’s predecessor, Gary Pinkel, used ‘dinged’ as a code-word for a concussion, and it seems Odom was using it in the same fashion. However, Burkett also had a wrap on his left hand/thumb on Friday. Either way, none of the new injuries sound serious.

The NCAA voted to outlaw off-campus satellite camps on Friday, ending the speculation about where Missouri would have recruiting camps this summer.

“Man, how about that?,” Odom said. “We were all kind of sitting around, waiting to see how the vote would go. Just as a staff, you’ve got to plan for Plan A and Plan B, like we talked about. I’m excited to get as many prospects as we can on our campus, and we’ll put on a great camp.

“It’s been awesome. The camps that we have had here, we’ve always found players. I would expect this summer to be the best camp series we’ve ever put on.”

So what was that contingency plan, should the NCAA have OK’ed satellite camps? Odom wasn’t specific, but again reiterated that they would have had up to ten camps in states in which they recruit. Again, PowerMizzou.com was told they had camps scheduled in Texas, New Orleans and Atlanta, in addition to stops in St. Louis and Kansas City.

One interesting note, however, was that Odom said there would have been partner camps with other SEC schools.

“There were so many schools reaching out, wanting to pair up together,” Odom said. “We had some things that we felt like we were going to do pretty strongly, and then within the last 48 hours, it got a little bit crazy on people wanting to pair up all over the place. There were some decisions to make yet, to see just how many we were really going to do. I think we had ten or so set and then we were going to make decisions from there.”

A report said that Missouri and Ole Miss had agreed to partner for a camp -- again, if the legislation had not passed. Odom wouldn’t deny or confirm the report.

“There were so many schools involved in the mega-camp that there were, I would say up to 15 schools that had communicated trying to plan out what was going to happen,” Odom said. “Then you sit around and you wait on the vote, and we got it today.”

Missouri’s access for the media has been curtailed in recent years, starting in 2012 with the DGB rule in which access to freshmen was limited in fall camp. The next year, we could speak with freshmen at all until they played; eventually, spring and fall camp practices were for the most part off limits save for scrimmages.

This year, under Odom, the media can watch stretching and warm-ups on selected days (about half of the 15 spring practices), but for the first time since before Gary Pinkel (according to longer tenured sportswriters) we won’t see a single meaningful part of practices or scrimmages.

Obviously, that’s been frustrating for the media, and even some fans have noticed. I asked Odom about the policy today.

“Just for our staff and for our team, to get as good as we can get,” Odom said, “and don’t worry about -- I just want to eliminate as many things as I can for our guys. We obviously understand the situation that we’re in. We need to be good now. And for us, to just be able to come out and work -- and it’s the same approach I’ve taken on a lot of things, in the weight room and in the meeting rooms, we’re doing things a little bit differently, and then on the practice field.

“I want our guys to focus, when it’s these two hours, I want our guys to focus on getting as good as we can get out here. We need, we’ve got a long ways to go, and I’m excited about our work that our guys have put in. Our student athletes, we’re doing a lot of positive things in the classroom. We’re doing a lot, getting a lot better out here, and I like the work that we’re doing in the weight room, too.”

So, part of it is Odom putting his stamp on the program, which is understandable. But media restrictions (which are happening everywhere, not just Columbia) in offseason practices are frustrating (duh). If you’re trying to simulate game-like competition, then having to talk to the media after a good or bad Saturday is part of the equation. I balk on the thought that what we’re writing -- and, again, even when scrimmages were open, we couldn’t write about specific formations or plays without asking -- is causing duress to the players and staff.

It’s unclear if the restrictions will continue into August camp and beyond, but that’s the explanation.

On Thursday, Missouri’s practice was open to students, and of course (despite an attempted social media black-out) information has matriculated onto Twitter and message boards. Basic theme? The offense struggled.

After (reportedly) doing well in the first two scrimmages, offensive players addressed Thursday’s (apparent) struggles.

“Yesterday wasn’t one of our best days,” tight end Kendall Blanton said. “It just showed us that we still got a lot more to work on. We were feeling really good after scrimmage one, but I feel like everyone still knows that we got a long way to go to be how good we want to be and how good we can be.”

“Yesterday, we kind of took a step back,” tight end Jason Reese said. “The defense kind of ramped it up a little bit, but that’s just us growing together as an offense and as a staff, facing adversity. We’ve got to put ourselves in better situations.”

Defensive tackle AJ Logan said after allowing over 200 rushing yards in the first scrimmage, the defense allowed under 50 yards in the most recent scrimmage.

“We’d like to have a better day, I guess you could say,” tight end Sean Culkin said. “But, I mean, it’s behind us. It’s every day in football, whether it’s a snap, a day, a series, you can only focus on each snap you’ve got going on.”

After being reported missing for a few days, Brandon Bourbon's body was found on Friday.

Bourbon was a four-star recruit in the 2010 class out of Potosi, and was the sixth-ranked player in the state of Missouri. He committed to Stanford early on before switching to Kansas before signing day; he eventually transferred to Washburn University after dealing with back injuries in Lawrence.

I know we cover Missouri and this is a Missouri practice notebook, but I wanted to talk about Bourbon. He was a running back in high school, and a great one at that. I remember driving down to Potosi in September 2009 to see his high school face off against Kony Ealy's New Madrid Central.

Bourbon ran roughshod over Ealy and Central in a 39-6 route. Not only that, but on defense, Bourbon had a sack and help completely neutralize Ealy as a receiver/tight end.

This past February, Ealy was nearly the Super Bowl MVP if the Carolina Panthers had won.

Bourbon is dead at the age of 24.

My relationship with Bourbon was brief and solely about recruiting. I can't imagine what his family and friends have to go through now. I'll always remember that game against Ealy, where I was cursing Bourbon (again, committed to a different school) for making my six-hour round-trip drive effectively worthless.

You were a hell of a football player. Rest in peace.