By Wendell Barnhouse
Big 12 Sports.com Correspondent
COLUMBIA, Mo. - Avoiding and ignoring the hype is easy. Just close your eyes, plug your ears and stay in your room.
Becoming a hermit is no way to prepare for a football season. For Missouri, there's little choice but to accept the fact that the Tigers are a consensus No. 6 preseason team and a national championship contender.
"It's a good time around here, it's pretty crazy," junior linebacker Sean Weatherspoon said. "We've got a lot of people patting us on the back."
Forget about being the new darlings of the college football experts. The Tigers talk like they'll be playing with a big chip on their shoulder pads.
"We don't believe in hype. There's no such thing as hype," sophomore wide receiver/returner Jeremy Maclin said. "We don't want to earn respect. We want to take respect. We don't want you to just give us respect. We want to take it from you."
Missouri's last conference championship came in 1969 when the Tigers won the Big Eight Conference. Last season, Mizzou won the Big 12 North Division but lost to Oklahoma in the conference championship game. The 12-win season, capped by a slap down of Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl, ranks as one of the greatest in school history.
Missouri coach Gary Pinkel believes the best way to attack complacency is through hard work.
"We handle expectation levels by asking your players: 'How hard are you working, what are you doing every practice? Every day when you wake up, are your habits the same?'" he said. "If there are changes in that, there are red flags flopping around.
"That's how you deal with expectations. Every day, are you taking care of your stuff? When I see any red flags, it's my job to get it straightened out.''
Senior quarterback Chase Daniel returns to run an attack that was fifth in total offense and averaged nearly 40 points a game last season. The defense returns 10 starters.
“It is do or die for us, the seniors anyway,” Daniel said. “I can’t get any more excited for a season. It’s my last season of college football. I’m going to take every bit of it and enjoy every bit of it.”
Missouri's senior class - Daniel, tight end Chase Coffman, safety William Moore, defensive lineman Ziggy Hood, wide receiver Tommy Saunders - is displaying leadership on and off the field.
"They're trying to tell us they don't want to go back that way. They've been there," Maclin said of the seniors' leadership. "They've been there when we went 5-6. They've been there when we went 8-5.
"The program's come a long way. Those guys have been there since day one; they've seen the good, the bad and the ugly."
The schedule is certainly no cakewalk.
Pinkel has heard all summer how Missouri fans can't wait for the season opener against Illinois in St. Louis. At last month's Big 12 media days, Pinkel joked that he could wait; he knows the Illini won't be a push over.
Missouri opens Big 12 play at Nebraska; the Tigers haven't won at Lincoln in three decades. Mizzou also has to play at Texas on Oct. 18.
"We used to be the hunter; now we're the hunted," Daniel said.
Taking a break: Missouri will have a game-type scrimmage Tuesday. The Tigers were scheduled for two practices Monday but Pinkel cancelled the afternoon workout.
“The whole key physically,” Pinkel said, “is to not beat your players up.”
Instead of practice Monday afternoon, it was team day at the movies. The cinematic choice? "Pineapple Express."
Overlooked defense?: The Tigers' defense was middle of the road last season. Ten starters return from a unit that finished first in total defense in Big 12 Conference games.
"We expect to be better,'' Pinkel said. "Our depth is young but very athletic. The defense has got a chance to be pretty good."
Most of the attention is focused on Missouri's offense, led by senior quarterback and Heisman Trophy candidate Chase Daniel.
"Maybe we're under the radar but we're not complaining about the great offense we've got,'' junior linebacker Sean Weatherspoon said.
"We definitely love the way they play. If we keep it under the radar, maybe we can surprise some people."
Cover boys: Missouri junior linebacker Sean Weatherspoon has a "dozen copies ... and counting" of the Sports Illustrated issue that features a cover photo of Chase Daniel, Jeremy Maclin and Weatherspoon.
“Nobody else from my hometown (Jasper, Texas) can say they’ve been on the cover of Sports Illustrated," Weatherspoon said. "Even though it’s just a regional cover, I mean, it’s a great accomplishment. It just shows what type of things are going on at Mizzou.”
BIG 12 FOOTBALL SKYWRITERS TOUR
Prior to the formation of the Big 12 Conference, sportswriters and sports broadcasters covering football in the Big Eight and Southwest conferences would gather in a central location and take off on the annual Skywriters Tour...an eight-day trek from campus-to-campus around the respective conferences to cover the preseason football practices. The tour provided fans with unprecedented daily coverage from each school. In the early years the tour consisted mostly of writers traveling by charter air service and thus was dubbed as the Skywriters Tour. In an effort to bring Big 12 fans additional insight into the fall camps from around the Big 12, we have dispatched Wendell Barnhouse and Melanie Weiser on the 2008 Big 12 Virtual Skywriters Tour.