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Columbia Daily Tribune
Meet Zion Young, Missouri football’s ‘relentless’ scoop-and-score Oklahoma hero
- Story byColumbia Daily Tribune
- Meet Zion Young, Missouri football’s ‘relentless’ scoop-and-score Oklahoma hero
Zion Young nearly forgot something important.
The Missouri football defensive end was one step removed from skipping into the postgame press conference. Good reason, too: He'd just scored the game-winning touchdown in a 30-23, comeback spectacular over Oklahoma, picking up a Triston Newson strip sack and taking it 17 yards to the house for the go-ahead, Sooner-socking score.
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He'd been given a game ball by head coach Eli Drinkwitz. He showed it off to the room and placed it underneath the microphone he'd use to regale the play and Saturday's historic game in Columbia.
Then, after all questions were asked and answered, he nearly left it on the lectern as he made his way toward the door.
"I'm tripping," he said, turning around, scooping it up — again — and going on his way.
Good thing he didn't forget it earlier.
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Young has slotted in seamlessly at Missouri's field-side defensive end role since transferring in from Michigan State in the offseason. The defensive end will be a vital player again when the Tigers play South Carolina on Saturday on the road in a ranked matchup. He's up to 30 total tackles, three sacks, 13 QB hurries and, of course, one touchdown on the season.
It was fitting that the score came when it did.
It was fitting that the play came in the textbook — "teach tape," as Drinkwitz called it — manner that it did.
Here's a behind the scenes look at what led to that memorable play from "relentless" Zion Young:
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'Stay dangerous': The work ethic behind Zion Young's TD
What is 'teach tape?'
Well, that's what coaches call it when something on the field is executed so excellently — or so disastrously wrong — that it immediately gets put on video, saved and used as a training exercise.
Drinkwitz has a snappy motto he uses with regularity around the team: "Practice execution makes gameday reality."
Young has that one down. Now, he's got some teach tape.
Every Monday and Tuesday, Missouri runs what it calls the "Bolton Drill." It's a scoop-and-score exercise named for former Missouri All-American linebacker Nick Bolton , who picked up a sitting ball and took it to the house for the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII against the Philadelphia Eagles .
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"We jump through a couple dummies, scoop and score," Young said. "Same thing."
How fitting that the drill Young replicated is named for Missouri's most talented recent linebacker.
That's where his football career began, all the way back at Westlake High in his hometown Atlanta .
"My first meeting with Zion, he was a fat linebacker, actually," former Westlake defensive assistant Jasper Grimes told the Tribune. "He came back towards the end of the summer, and he was a leaned-out, 6-5, 230 kind of kid, and he still wanted to play linebacker. … I told him, 'when you're ready to put your hand in the dirt, come find me.' Maybe two weeks later, he was down playing defensive end, and it was just natural for him. It took a little while to kind of get adjusted, but he's a quick learner."
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That move worked out.
Grimes has a motto, much like Drinkwitz's practice-to-game phrase: "Stay dangerous." The coach has helped send players to Alabama and Florida State. Grimes likes to call his group "hellraisers," because they "show up, raise hell and leave."
Young fit the bill.
Grimes still has a video on his phone of a 5 a.m. practice in which Young shed a chip-block and a 3-on-1 got to tag the quarterback. Teach tape.
Not long after, Grimes recalled, Young had a series in a playoff game that included two sacks, a beat-down pass and another tackle for loss. Practice, reality.
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"He's relentless. Like, from the start of practice to the end of practice, Zion is 100 miles an hour," Grimes said. "Sometimes you've kind of got to reel him back in, like, 'Hey, this is a walkthrough.' … He's coming like a bat out of hell with his hair on fire 10 times out of 10."
Missouri football defensive end Zion Young (9) hits Buffalo Bulls quarterback C.J. Ogbonna (7) as he throws a pass during the first half of the Tigers' game against the Bulls on September 7, 2024 in Columbia, MO. Mathew Kirby.
Choosing Mizzou — again — and all the in between
Missouri nearly lost out on signing Young.
Twice.
Before a late push from Michigan State, Young had been on an official visit to Mizzou as a high school prospect shortly before signing day. Drinkwitz said he even committed to him. The edge rusher ended up flipping to MSU.
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After two seasons at Michigan State, he put his name in the transfer portal Dec. 1, 2023. The Missouri staff quickly got back in contact and made another push. Young came on another visit, and it seemed to be trending in the right direction. Until …
"He went back and called me, 'Coach, Florida State's really trying to make a push for me,'" Drinkwitz told 'Voice of the Tigers' Mike Kelly during his weekly radio show, Tiger Talk, on Tuesday. "I said, 'No, no they're not. You've already done this to me once.' He ended up coming, and he's just been a remarkable young man."
Young committed — at last — to Missouri on Jan. 15.
While that decision was being made, he was training back in Atlanta with a couple of his former Westlake High teammates, who all went to defensive line specialist and trainer Xavier Pendergrass at Velocity Athlete Development.
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Young had the skill set.
"He passes the eye test, for sure," Pendergrass said. "And then once he kind of got into the drills, you know, it was really cool to just see how freakishly athletic he was firsthand."
Pendergrass wanted to polish that skillset, and he didn't need to do much convincing.
Pendegrrass said Young was showing up at 11 a.m. for noon workouts so often, his two workout partners started showing up early, too. The first time Young came in, Pendegrass was in another session and had to tell the "ready to work" edge rusher to relax for a moment. Whether it was the hour before or the hour after a class, Young lifted weights in addition to his work with the trainer.
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That paid off against OU.
Young said on Tiger Talk that Mizzou defensive ends coach Brian Early had asked him if needed to come off the field before that play. He'd already taken 48 snaps, after all.
Young told the coach he had one more play in him. A big one, too.
Every session, Pendergrass said they worked on Young's "get off" after the snap and other fundamentals. But they were also doing eye-placement work, and the trainer was trying to increase his football IQ.
"Through increasing your IQ, the skill set just naturally becomes better," Pendergrass said. "Just because now you can start to dictate sometimes as opposed to just reading and reacting all the time."
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Watch the play back to see how that worked out.
Young starts off rushing the passer, and gets so close to Oklahoma quarterback Jackson Arnold that the QB steps up in the pocket and past two of his blockers. That opens up a wide-open gap for Newson to make contact.
Young shed the grappling OU right tackle and turned back to Arnold. Newson had knocked the ball loose. The defensive end turned into the ball's path before it took one bounce on Faurot Field.
"I see the ball, it was like it dropped out of the sky," Young said on Tiger Talk. "I couldn't believe it. I'm like, 'look at God.'"
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And then …
"I picked it up," Young said, "and I scored."
Textbook.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Meet Zion Young, Missouri football's 'relentless' scoop-and-score DE
