Michael Sam coming out: Rival SEC assistant coaches say Missouri could suffer backlash because of its support for gay athlete [VIDEO]

While the NFL continues to wrestle with the Michael Sam situation, his current team also faces a potentially ominous future.

SI.com reported Tuesday that multiple SEC rival assistant coaches say Missouri's handling of Sam's sexual orientation could entice rival schools to use that against the Tigers in recruiting.

"Coaches are going to be all over this," one assistant coach at a rival school told SI.com. "It's a powder keg waiting to explode."

The coach told SI.com that opposing coaches would attempt to turn what was a non-issue at Missouri - after Sam revealed to the Tigers program at a team dinner in August that he was gay - into a series of questions about the team's motives.

Why did (Missouri) cover this up?" the assistant said a sample question could be. "What else are they hiding? What were they trying to do? Keep a secret society?

"I can see it getting really ugly."

That line of questioning seems to grasp at straws, except for the fact that NFL administrative personal also have said that Sam's coming out could be a black mark against him because teams might not want to deal with the media attention that is certain to come to the team that chooses him in the NFL Draft.

Those comments have been hammered some in the media, who point out that teams have dealt with players who have been linked to much larger controversies. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart pointed out transgressions such as a DUI vehicular manslaughter, obstruction of justice in connection with a murder, sexual assault, shouted a racial slur at a concert or killed a bunch of dogs have been dealt with by NFL teams.

That's why when another SEC assistant tells SI.com that the negative recruiting against Missouri could be similar to that against Virginia Tech in the aftermath of a campus massacre in 2007 when some coaches tried to convince Virginia Tech recruits that the school was full of mass murderers.

So just the NFL braces for what ahead, so too should Missouri, based on the "logic" being presented in Missouri's support of Sam becoming a detriment.

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