Missouri Tigers Football starts spring full of new, talented faces

Mizzou football opened its spring practice this week with plenty of new faces and several familiar ones missing.

Program cornerstones like Brady Cook, Luther Burden III and Armand Membou led the team to back-to-back 10 win seasons for the first time since 2013 and 2014.

“It’s honestly surreal to not have those guys who’ve been with me the whole time, but this is a new group,” head coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “It’s a new energy, it’s good.”

The newcomers include the fourth best transfer portal class in the nation according to On3’s rankings. Beau Pribula, the former Penn State blue chipper at quarterback, was one of the class’s prized additions.

Quarterback was the position on many peoples’ minds today with Brady Cook’s departure, and the Tigers fanbase is clamoring to know who will lead the offense this season.

But Drinkwitz feels no pressure to make that decision anytime soon, saying there was no plan to name a starter during the spring. He said the Tigers decided the first quarterback to take reps in practice through a game of rock, paper, scissors.

“There’s an old saying, ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear,’” Drinkwitz said. “When the starting quarterback makes himself known to the rest of the team, we’ll announce the starter.”

The team also received a portal infusion on the defensive end, bringing in notable names like On3’s top ranked edge rusher Damon Wilson, Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year and linebacker Josiah Trotter and two-time All-American safety Jalen Catalon.

“I’m really excited to see how it turns out,” STAR Daylan Carnell said about the defensive backs. “We’ve got ball players one through nine in that room.”

Carnell himself could have pursued the NFL Draft after last season, but decided to return for one final year in Columbia.

“It mostly just came down to what was left on the table for me,” he said. “I mean, I felt like me coming back only helped me.”

Though several veterans like Carnell return, one of the challenges for the staff will be maintaining the program’s core values with these talented, new-look Tigers.

“The number one realization in college football is every year it starts over,” Drinkwitz said, “and it’s about reestablishing the culture and identity that you want on this football team.”

Mizzou is also dealing with continued recovery from injuries to several key players.

Starting center Connor Tollison and Darris Smith, the Georgia transfer expected to play the “Joker” position in Corey Batoon’s defense last year before injuring his knee, were both non-contact participants in practice.

Brett Norfleet was also one of the few players wearing green, non-contact jerseys during the practice. He was hampered by a shoulder injury last year after being named a Freshman All-American by College Football Network in 2023. He underwent surgery to fix the issue after the end of the regular season.

“We’re going to be very cautious in how we try to utilize him this spring, [we] don’t want any setbacks,” Drinkwitz said. “He’s out there in non-contact situations and drills that we can protect him, but in drills that could threaten reinjuring that, he won’t participate this spring.”

Besides health, another emphasis this spring is simple: improvement.

“I told them, today should be the worst day you are as a Missouri football player, because it’s your first day, you’re unsure of everything,” Drinkwitz said. “This is about individual player development. It is about each player trying to get better and better every single day.”

One player who showed improvement during the brief open practice session was Blake Craig, who got in some work with the field goal unit and drilled a 40-yarder with plenty of room to spare. The redshirt sophomore was 24-34 on field goals last year, with seven of those misses coming between 40 and 49 yards.

Drinkwitz pointed to that stat as something the staff has worked to improve this season, giving a few possible explanations.

“One of the things that we felt like is maybe charting the wind to see if we’re over adjusting for the wind, because our [outdoor] practice fields continue to be windy up there,” he said. “Also, we were using movable goalposts on the practice field instead of the exact same replica goal post that we have in the stands. We’ve made an adjustment to that, just to make sure that we’re putting our guys in the best position possible.”

Mizzou still has questions left to answer this offseason, but the team’s talent and expectations remain high. The Tigers are focused on preventing that natural talent and the team’s sustained success from steering them off course.

“I’ve challenged everybody, let’s not be comfortable. Let’s not be complacent,” Drinkwitz said. “Complacency will kill our team, and being comfortable will kill our ability to win.”