A lot of key players moved on, but that didn't do much to deter fans from dreaming.
After the 2023 season, Missouri football lost 10 rotational pieces and five NFL draftees on a Cotton Bowl-winning defense, the SEC's leading rusher and two stalwarts along the offensive line. Even with all of those players out of the door, the College Football Playoff still did not seem out of reach.
That's because the Tigers made encouraging strides finding their replacements. Mizzou brought in 17 players out of the transfer portal over the offseason and ahead of the 2024 campaign, most of whom were tabbed to instantly plug into the starting lineup.
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But where has all that production in the portal worked for Mizzou, and where has it fallen flat?
Missouri , after an oh-so-close loss at South Carolina on Saturday, Nov. 16, dropped to 7-3 on the season, 3-3 in the SEC and definitively out of the running for a spot in the 12-team playoff field.
One year ago, after a 10-2 regular season, Missouri's end-of-season ranking would have had it in the field, if the expanded playoff had been in place.
Let's see how some of the Tigers' new players have fared, comparing the production of each unit where Missouri made significant portal additions to replace lost talent. All of the numbers listed below are from immediately after MU's game against South Carolina :
Replacing Cody Schrader's overall impact on the program was a nigh-on impossible task. But, Missouri's job wasn't necessarily to replace his impact, but to find the means to restore the storied running back's on-field production.
Schrader took the overwhelming majority of carries for Missouri last season and finished as the SEC's leading rusher with 1,627 yards and 14 touchdowns. Mizzou brought in Nate Noel and Marcus Carroll , but since Noel has spent significant portions of the season on the sideline this season, Jamal Roberts and freshman Kewan Lacy have found roles in the rotation.
Last season, Schrader and sparingly used backup Nathaniel Peat combined for 149.7 yards rushing per game, or 1,946 yards on the season.
Missouri's running back rotation this season is rushing for 137.9 yards per game, which is on pace for approximately 1,800 rushing yards.
Excluding the obvious quarterback drama, perhaps the biggest "what if" of this Missouri season: What if Noel was healthy all year?
Noel, taking more than 10 handoffs for the first time since September, ran for 150 yards and a touchdown against South Carolina. Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz has said that he's never coached anyone who can read the outside zone better.
And when Noel has been fully available, his numbers have come close to matching Schrader.
Where Schrader averaged 5.8 yards per carry, Noel is averaging 5.7 yards per carry. Schrader picked up 3.07 yards after contact on average last season, while Noel is averaging 2.87 YAC yards.
Here's the issue: Schrader was involved in 734 snaps last year. Noel is on pace for about half of that.
Replacing two NFL cornerbacks — Ennis Rakestraw Jr. and Kris Abrams-Draine — was always going to be a challenge.
Missouri acquired Clemson transfer Toriano Pride Jr. and was otherwise dependent on an in-house player to take a step forward. In recent weeks, that has increased to reliance on two returners.
Redshirt freshman Nicholas DeLoach has essentially surpassed Pride on the depth chart, after the pair mostly split reps early in the season. Dreyden Norwood , who was MU's third corner last season, has been ever-present as CB1.
There's been a pretty clear difference in production from the position.
In 2023, here were Rakestraw, Abrams-Draine and Norwood's numbers, per PFF: The trio, combined, were targeted 107 times and allowed 59 catches (53.3%) for 713 yards and five touchdowns last season.
Between Norwood, DeLoach and Pride, through three fewer games, the corners have been targeted 78 times, allowing 46 catches (58.9%) for 762 yards and four touchdowns. With three games left to play, some of those stats have already surpassed last season's total.
A step back was to be expected. It's not every year you have a second- and fifth-round draft manning the starting spots, like Mizzou did last season. But the numbers show a noticeable regression.
Javon Foster and Xavier Delgado started every single game at left tackle and left guard, respectively, for Mizzou last season. And they started all but one game between them in 2022. And all but four games between them in 2021.
Talk about continuity.
Missouri did some of its most eyebrow-raising work by signing Marcus Bryant and Cayden Green . Bryant was a first-team All-AAC player at SMU. Green was a consensus top-20 player available after starting as a freshman at Oklahoma .
But an increasingly common cliche in college football circles has held some weight: Offensive lines need time to gel.
Per PFF, Marcus Bryant has allowed 19 pressures this season. Cayden Green has been tagged for 10. Add 'em up and that's 29 pressures combined, with five turning into sacks and five turning into hits.
Foster allowed 13 pressures over the course of last season. Delgado allowed 17. That's 30 combined, and two turned into sacks and four QB hits.
Again, the 2024 Tigers are on pace to overtake last season's numbers by a significant margin.
Mizzou's bread-and-butter stretch plays running the ball have also increasingly gone to the right side of the line. Take the South Carolina game as an example, where Brady Cook said the Tigers ran "outside zone to the right like 50 times, and they couldn't stop it." He's right. The Gamecocks couldn't get near Noel from following right tackle Armand Membou. Last year, that was often the case for Schrader and Foster.
There appears to have been more consistency in recent weeks from the left side of the line. Against both Oklahoma and USC, Mizzou mostly kept its QBs — Cook and Drew Pyne — clean. But the damage was done in Missouri's midseason losses.
Defensive end, in particular, is a tough spot to evaluate. Missouri replaced first-round draft pick Darius Robinson and Nyles Gaddy with Zion Young, Darris Smith and Eddie Kelly Jr. out of the portal. They were set to plug into the rotation with returners Johnny Walker Jr. and Joe Moore III. Both Smith (preseason) and Moore (midseason) have since been ruled out for the year.
The same injury troubles apply to the second level, where outside linebacker Khalil Jacobs ' season-ending injury before Week 6 has essentially dwindled the rotation down to three players in a year the Tigers needed to replace third-round draft pick Ty'Ron Hopper. Caleb Flagg has been immense at middle linebacker, but that's a different role from Hopper.
Back up front, Mizzou's top two edge rushers haven't quite generated as much pressure as they did last season. Where Robinson and Walker managed about 5.5 pressures a game and more than a sack per game between them last season, Walker and Young are creating 4.5 pressures per game.
It's not an overwhelming difference, but it adds up.
Missouri ranks 52nd in the FBS in team sacks this year as Walker and Young have combined for nine. That's obviously not solely a defensive end stat, but with Robinson and Walker registering 17 sacks between them last season, the Tigers were the 12th-best team in the nation in the same category.
Might the defense have been able to generate more pass rush up front with Smith and Moore available all year?
The case study is on the interior of the defensive line, where transfers Chris McClellan and Sterling Webb have mostly kept the Tigers on pace to replicate their pass-rushing and run-stopping numbers from a year ago.
What-coulda-been …
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Analyzing Missouri football transfer portal work for 2024 season
