COLUMBIA, Mo. — There’s a fairly frequent drill that the Missouri football team goes through during workouts at Memorial Stadium: running the stairs. The Tigers climb from the field level up toward the concourse in the name of conditioning.
But next week, a different kind of climb begins.
Mizzou will open its preseason camp on Monday, practicing in “fall†— high temperatures are forecast to be in the upper 90s next week, so it’s decidedly still summer — for the first time.
Within some portions of the roster, that means there’s an opportunity for players to climb the depth chart ladder.
Last season, one of those opportunities was at quarterback, but Brady Cook cleared the field there. Headed into the 2024 preseason, MU’s most impactful position battles are more in the nitty-gritty parts of the game. Here are three to keep an eye on as camp unfolds:
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Linebacker
Technically, the Tigers’ linebacker corps lost both starters from last season, though Chad Bailey and Ty’Ron Hopper both missed significant portions of the campaign with injuries. That pushed Chuck Hicks and Triston Newson into bigger roles, which both will look to reprise this time around.
They are veteran presences in their final years of college football, but starter status is not a guarantee.
Corey Flagg Jr., who transferred from Miami, seems likely to provide the biggest push to Hicks and Newson — more likely the latter as the “will†or weak-side linebacker. Flagg has played double-digit games each of the past three seasons, so he has experience. His ability to roam around the defense as a blitzer could be an intriguing element to the Tigers’ evolving scheme.
Khalil Jacobs will be another of the primary challengers. He transferred to Missouri from South Alabama, following new defensive coordinator Corey Batoon from his past stop to his new stomping grounds.
Other names to watch in the heart of the defense are second-year player Brayshawn Littlejohn, who played well in his limited special teams looks before redshirting, and Jeremiah Beasley, who transferred from Michigan. At face value, both seem too inexperienced to be in contention for a starting spot, but preseason camp could lay the groundwork for them to find contributing roles later this season.
Defensive tackle
At defensive tackle, a starting role is mostly nominal. The Tigers rolled with a four-man rotation on the interior of the defensive line, so something similar is likely to stay in place.
Kristian Williams is the only member of last year’s rotation to be back this season. That likely leaves three spots up for grabs.
Chris McClellan and Sterling Webb both entered the fray out of the transfer portal, coming from Florida and New Mexico State respectively. They each appeared in 25 games across their first two seasons of college football, bringing a degree of experience to MU.
With McClellan’s appearances coming against Southeastern Conference competition, he seems more inclined to start alongside Williams, though he only made one start with the Gators. Webb, a Westminster product, could lead the chase group.
Who becomes the fourth defensive tackle seems much more up in the air. Marquis Gracial, a third-year player whose high school ball came at St. Charles, appeared just twice last season. Jalen Marshall, who’s in the same class, played in one game. Second-year player Sam Williams didn’t step onto the field in any games last season.
And then there are three freshmen — Elias Williams, Justin Bodford and Jadon Frick — who are listed as defensive tackles, though rising to the SEC’s level of physicality in the trenches is a tough task for such young players.
The influx of newcomers and younger players who will ultimately end up taking snaps at defensive tackle makes this position battle less about internal competition and more about stacking up competently against eventual opponents — the question with this group is more about whether Mizzou can get four of these players to be serviceable rotation pieces once the season starts.
Punter
Is this one glamorous? Not at all, but it’s a battle that went unresolved throughout the 2023 season.
Coach Eli Drinkwitz didn’t seem satisfied with his punter options during last preseason camp, and that lingered throughout the regular season too.
Riley Williams, who departed MU over the offseason, was the punter for the first three games. Then Luke Bauer stepped in for the fourth through 10th games, only for Williams to reprise his role in the final three games of the season, save for one Bauer punt in the regular-season finale.
If that sounds a little wishy-washy, it’s because it is.
Bauer will once again face an Australian competitor for the job — this time in the form of Murray State transfer Orion Phillips.
They dueled during spring ball, though that didn’t seem to settle things. A windy spring game made it difficult to evaluate them, though Bauer did average more yards per punt in that affair. The Tigers are likely to chase consistency with their eventual punter pick, making the entire volume of preseason camp a basis for determining the specialist of choice.
Other positions that could see competition are running back, where a committee approach is likely, and offensive line, where the Missouri coaching staff has yet to figure out its best combination of players.