College football notebook 7/18

Gerald Munns suffers from linebacker’s disease

Doug Haller of the Arizona Republic wrote a piece yesterday to shed some light on the Medical/Compassionate Withdrawal that Arizona State linebacker Gerald Munns was granted in 2008. Munns returned to the team last year and is set to embark on a senior season in which he’ll back up Vontaze Burfict.

Here’s my problem: after reading it, I can’t really tell if there was an actual medical diagnosis applied to what was wrong with Munns:

Life is complicated, so let’s keep this simple.

There are parts of 2008 Munns doesn’t care to discuss. Parts he wants to forget. He speaks about it for the first time openly, but also carefully.

In short, Munns experienced a perfect storm of emotions, a head-thumping collision of what he says were personal, family and football issues.

A broken finger made matters worse. At the time, Munns strived for perfection on the field, a place where such a thing doesn’t exist. Physical and mental breakdowns take place in every contest, on nearly every snap. (Arizona Republic)

The way Munns tells the story, it sounds like, well, he was suffering from being an angry, tightly wound linebacker:

“I place a lot of stress on myself as a football player because I feel like I perform well when I’m putting pressure on myself,” Munns said. “I like that. But I was getting to the point where I couldn’t control it. It can take you to a dark place when there’s no satisfaction. You got to be able to sometimes give yourself a pat on the back, as silly as that sounds. I wasn’t able to recognize my limitations.” (Arizona Republic)

Missouri’s on the verge of another nice in-state recruiting haul

Gary Pinkel began to turn around Missouri’s football fortunes when he started to convince more in-state kids to stay home and play in Columbia.  As the win totals increased for the Tigers, so did Pinkel’s stranglehold on the state.  Take 2008, for instance, when he and his staff convinced seven of the Rivals.com Missouri Top 10 to sign with them.  That group included studs like quarterback Blaine Gabbert and tight end Andrew Jones.

So naturally it raised a few eyebrows the following year when Missouri got beat out for a lot of the state’s top kids.  Arkansas came in and grabbed Ronnie Wingo out of St. Louis, Illinois swooped in and grabbed Nathan Scheelhaase out of Kansas City and Wisconsin made off with Wentzville’s Montee Ball.  In the end, the misses took some of the luster off the staff’s ‘09 effort.

Missouri re-focused and took care of it’s in-state business in 2010, though, inking the top three players in the state according to Rivals: offensive lineman Nick Demien, wide receiver Marcus Lucas and defensive end Kony Ealy.  Cornerbacks coach Cornell Ford was very instrumental in securing the services of Demien, but he was also the primary recruiter for two other in-state studs: Blaine Gabbert’s little brother Tyler (also a quarterback) and offensive lineman Anthony Gatti.

Ford’s showing his recruiting prowess again this year, helping Missouri put together what’s shaping up to be another great in-state haul.  He’s been the lead recruiter for Anthony Pierson, the lights out running back who’ll most likely play cornerback in Columbia.  Two other players in the current Rivals .com Missouri Top 10, quarterback Corbin Berkstresser and wide receiver Wesley Leftwich, have also given verbal pledges to Missouri.