No. 21 Missouri faces UMass on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024 (10/12/24) at Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium in Amherst, Massachusetts.

How to watch: Fans can watch the game for free via a trial of DirecTV Stream or fuboTV. You can also watch via a subscription to Sling TV.

Here’s what you need to know:

What: College Football

Who: Missouri vs. UMass

When: Oct. 12, 2024

Where: Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium (Amherst, Massachusetts)

Time: 12 p.m. ET (11 a.m. CT)

TV: ESPN2

Live stream: DirecTV Stream or fuboTV

Here’s a college football story from the AP:

No. 21 Missouri (4-1) at UMass (1-5), Saturday, 12 p.m. (ESPN2)

BetMGM College Football Odds: Missouri by 27 1/2.

Series record: First meeting.

WHAT’S AT STAKE?

Mizzou is trying to bounce back from a 41-10 loss to No. 25 Texas A&M and win its ninth straight nonconference game. UMass has never beaten a Southeastern Conference opponent in 11 tries.

KEY MATCHUP

Mizzou receivers vs. UMass secondary: WR Theo Wease Jr. had 72 yards on two catches, including a 59-yard touchdown, against Texas A&M. Luther Burden III had seven catches for 82 yards against the Aggies and has caught a pass in 27 straight games. He is 74 yards from topping 2,000 in his career.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Mizzou: QB Brady Cook has not thrown an interception in 116 straight pass attempts since his only pickoff against Buffalo on Sept. 7. Last year, he went an SEC record 365 passes without an interception.

UMass: QB Taisun Phommachanh is fourth among FBS quarterbacks with 290 yards after contact when rushing the ball. Even in last week’s 34-20 loss to Northern Illinois he threw for 263 yards and two touchdowns. A week earlier, he ran for 80 yards against Miami of Ohio.

FACTS & FIGURES

It’s the first meeting between the teams. … Mizzou is going for a second straight unbeaten record in nonconference play, having already beaten Murray State, Buffalo and Boston College. Last year’s team went 5-0 in nonconference games, including a victory over No. 7 Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. … Mizzou had been ranked as high as No. 6 but dropped to No. 21 after the loss to the Aggies. … The Tigers have been ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 for 18 straight weeks, its longest streak in 10 years. … The offense has converted in 20 of 21 red zone opportunities, 13th-best in the nation and third in the SEC. … RB Nate Noel has led Mizzou in rushing in all five games, including a career-high 199 against Vanderbilt on Sept. 21. … Coach Eliah Drinkwitz is 13-2 in nonconference games at Mizzou. … The Tigers have committed just two turnovers in their first five games – and none in their last three. … Five Minutemen have rushed for a touchdown: CJ Hester (2), Phommachanh (1), Jalen John (1), Brandon Campbell (1) and Jackson Paradis (1). … WR Jakobie Keeney-James had a career-high 150 yards receiving against Miami of Ohio, including a career-longest 66-yard touchdown.

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With last year’s history of recruiting potential top NFL draft, receiver Luther Burden III, attracting blue-chip athletes into the transfer portal, and signing one of the best defensive prospects in high school, Williams Nwaneri, sets are high with the legislative initiative under the Mizzou Model has skyrocketed business proposals and player expectations. 

Missouri quarterback, Brady Cook, has received $1.2 million from NIL (Name, Image, Likeness). More than $1.7 billion has been funneled into earnings for athletes under NIL. Yet, 80% of that money is via collectives which are from boosters. Cook explains that he learned more about the intricacies of business this year which has allowed his portfolio to flourish. 

With the assistance of the state legislature, the University of Missouri has created a track for student-athletes to get paid. Thanks to state representative Kurtis Gregory who assisted in the process of this new law, he is not only aware of the harsh realities of NIL but understands NIL’s wide door of possibilities for the development of players as a former athlete himself. The state of Missouri has granted the University to establish a marketing agency including its funding. The marketing agency, known as Every True Tiger, allocates money to players. 

Furthermore, this new law allows high school in-state athletes to profit from endorsement deals on the conditional basis that they intend to attend a public university in Missouri. This new program allows students to receive all NIL benefits because the deal bans the NCAA from scrutinizing players’ purported deals. 

Head Coach Eliah Drinkwitz reflects on the elite players recruited as a consequence of the competitive edge that NIL has revived. Drinkwitz says, “I would just say that we embraced new realities of college football and understood that it could be a competitive advantage for us to be aggressive in that space. It absolutely has contributed to our success.” 

It is this new athletic arena where the ethos, combined with the inducements create a framework for team success. The way Coaches now speak to recruits is more incentivized around the price tag. Team building activities such as locker rooms, training facilities, and fields have practically replaced any other cost. Players such as Obi Ezeigbo did not cost the team any money they didn’t have, consequently affording him a place on Oklahoma State’s roster.

The state law and agency ensure that Drinkwitz will hold his word. In addition to the personality match of a player-coach relationship, there is a newfound business negotiation in the relationship. Cook reminds us that the currency in football depends on if you win, you make money.

The family business that owns the Kansas City Chiefs is one of the biggest funders of a political action committee opposing a proposed amendment to overturn Missouri’s abortion ban.

Unity Hunt, the business that controls the assets of the late Lamar Hunt, including the Chiefs, in late September donated $300,000 to the Leadership for America PAC. It is currently running ads on several conservative radio stations across the state opposing the abortion-rights amendment, which will appear on the November ballot as Amendment 3.

Leadership for America is an independent spending PAC created in January. Prior to receiving the donation from Unity Hunt, the PAC had $31,159 on hand.

Along with paying directly for radio ads, Leadership for America has donated $100,000 to Vote “No” on 3, the main opposition group in the Amendment 3 campaign. And on Oct. 3, the PAC donated $100,000 to a PAC called Missouri Leadership Fund, which gave $100,000 to Vote “No” on 3 six days later.

Neither Unity Hunt nor the Kansas City Chiefs responded to requests for comment.

No one from Leadership for America could be reached for comment. The telephone number given to the Missouri Ethics Commission for treasurer John Royal has been disconnected.

The ads, which began airing across the state on Monday, call Amendment 3 “cleverly-worded to convince you that it only allows abortions until fetal viability.” 

“But it has loopholes that allow for abortions through all nine months of pregnancy,” the ad continues. “Abortion proponents used to say ‘safe, legal and rare.’ But now they want abortion as common as the morning after pill.”

Supporters of the amendment say claims of abortions in the third trimester are misleading, since the legal freedoms around abortion would only apply until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be around 24 weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The amendment text would allow the Missouri legislature to regulate abortion after fetal viability with exceptions only to “protect the life, or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”

Abortion is illegal from the moment of conception in Missouri, with limited exceptions for medical emergencies. There are no exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

Leadership for America has spent a little more than $32,000 on the radio ads, which are set to run through Nov. 4. There are no other broadcast ads opposing the amendment.

Organized efforts against Amendment 3 have been hugely outspent by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the committee backing the amendment. The campaign reported spending $7.3 million through June 30 and has purchased more than $8.7 million in television ads since the start of September.

Vote “No” on 3 has not filed a full disclosure report but has amassed $870,000 in donations greater than $5,000 since Aug. 30.

While the content of the Leadership for America ad aligns with most other opposition talking points, the original source of the money behind the ad drew some attention.

“It is incredibly disappointing to see Unity Hunt spend resources on this campaign to spread lies and continue the fear-mongering surrounding Amendment 3,” said state Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Democrat from Kansas City.

Nurrenbern, who is running for the 17th Senate District in Clay County, said she was particularly alarmed by the size of the donation from a family she said “has done so much good for Kansas City and the Kansas City area.”

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State Rep. Ashley Aune, also a Democrat from Kansas City, said she wasn’t surprised to see the Hunt family backing an effort to stop abortion.

“But also, it’s disappointing because when you have such a big platform,” Aune said. “Using that platform to sow misinformation is a really irresponsible way to use it.”

In 2020, Lamar Hunt Jr. served as the master of ceremonies at the Kansans for Life annual Valentine’s Day banquet.

Hunt, an owner of the Chiefs, told the crowd: “I do not think it is a cliché to say we are in a life and death battle for the truth and authentic dignity of the human person.”

Hunt six years earlier published a blog post to his website contemplating what he observed as cultural shifts away from the “pro-choice” movement, comparing the momentum in the “pro-life” community to the San Francisco 49ers comeback and near-win in the final seconds of the 2013 Super Bowl.

This story was first published at missouriindependent.com.