Mizzou Tiger Talk with Gary Pinkel, Kony Ealy, and Dorial Green-Beckham

Dorial Green-Beckham and Kony Ealy joined Mike Kelly on Monday night at Buffalo Wild Wings for Mizzou football’s weekly Tiger Talk.

Beckham, a sophomore from Springfield, Mo., is coming off a career game in which he hauled in eight receptions for 105 yards and a touchdown. It was his second straight game with a touchdown and his third straight with at least four catches. The 6-foot-6 wideout is quickly emerging as James Franklin’s favorite target as he leads the team with 17 catches and 239 yards through three games.

Ealy, a junior from New Madrid, Mo., is also coming off a very strong performance.

The 275-pound defensive end broke up two passes, recorded a tackle, applied constant pressure on the Indiana quarterbacks and returned an interception 49 yards for a touchdown. The continuous discomfort that Ealy and the rest of the front seven made Nate Sudfeld and Tre Roberson feel was a big reason that Mizzou was able to hold the nation’s sixth ranked offense to just 200 yards in the second half. He earned the SEC Defensive Line Player of the Week award for his efforts.

Kelly started it off by asking Ealy what it’s like to be a student athlete at Mizzou. Ealy was quick to point out that Coach Pinkel and the entire staff stresses the importance of being a student first and athlete second. They make sure that education comes before football and that all members of the football family succeed in the classroom before they have a chance to succeed on the field.

This is especially important to Ealy, who hails from a small town that is 30 miles from the nearest store. Ealy is an agriculture major with an emphasis in business and he wants to use his education to help people of his community and the people of other small towns by making the essentials, such as supermarkets and hospitals, more accessible them. He wants to help them live a more comfortable life.

When asked why he chose to attend Mizzou over virtually every school in the nation, Green-Beckham cited that staying at home was very important to him. He grew up around respectful, caring people in Missouri and wanted to continue to be around those people throughout his college experience.

For Ealy, the family atmosphere is what drew him in. He also loves that Columbia is a very active town, referencing the people that are out jogging at four in the morning when he’s getting up for football. Overall, Ealy views the home of the Tigers as one big, active family that sticks together and supports each other.

To round out the night, each player had a chance to tell the crowd a little known fact about one another. Green-Beckham informed everyone that Ealy trains dogs. Ealy wanted to make it known that he is a better basketball player than Green-Beckham. He even challenged the receiver to a dunk-contest of sorts, claiming that he can dunk over five people and that the towering receiver can’t.

Kelly came up with a dispute to settle the plan. If the athletic lineman can’t dunk on the lanky former basketball star, then Ealy has to train Green-Beckham’s dog for free.

Make sure you attend Tiger Talk at Buffalo Wild Wings every Monday at 7 p.m., or tune in to 100.5 FM to hear your Tigers talk about the season and a wide range of other topics.