A look at the grocery list as Eli Drinkwitz and friends go shopping in the portal.
The transfer portal is back open and, thanks to the perceived pecking order established in spring practices, it’s time for current third- and fourth-stringers to try their luck and find a starting spot at another school.
Missouri is actually sitting in a pretty good place at the moment. Despite the declarations of three depth players, Mizzou’s effective roster seems set and ready to go for the fall (at the moment).
However, as Eli Drinkwitz has said multiple times, he and his staff will not sit back and let opportunities to add to the roster go by, and will be keeping an eye on portal additions for players to add in order to better their team.
So where do I think they’ll be looking to add? First of all, great question, thanks for asking. Second, this is how I see it:
Offensive Line
Maybe this is a cop-out answer but, just like all college football teams need to recruit a quarterback in every class, most teams should always add a transfer offensive lineman if the staff believes he can start and contribute immediately. It takes the longest to develop offensive lineman at the college level, and while you can never not recruit high school offensive linemen and attempt to build one purely out of the portal (hello, Colorado), you can certainly skip a few steps and add one guy who can challenge the current guys for starting snaps.
If there is an SEC-starter-caliber offensive lineman in the portal, this staff will take them. That happened in ‘21 (E.J. Ndoma-Ogar), ‘22 (Dylan Spencer & Bence Polgar), and ‘23 (Cam’Ron Johnson & Marcellus Johnson). They might not always work out but you take them regardless.
Linebacker
While it contains the fewest playing slots and has certainly been deemphasized in recent years, Mizzou fans all saw how important it was to have at least four linebackers that can play, even if your scheme only deploys two on the field. The Tigers got extremely lucky that Chuck Hicks and Triston Newson were every bit as havoc-y as their starting counterparts; they are less lucky in the fact that their projected top three guys for the year will be out of eligibility at the conclusion of this season (barring a medical redshirt for either Flagg or Newson). So while we can have all the faith in the world that Brayshawn Littlejohn, Brian Huff, and Nicholas Rodriguez could be the next best thing in the linebacking corps, it would be nice to have a few experienced backups throw in there as insurance.
Safety
Missouri’s 4-2-5 defense utilized three safeties under the Blake Baker regime and seemingly will be doing the same under Corey Batoon. That means you need three starters and, ideally, three backups, equaling a minimum of six guys on the roster.
Missouri for sure loses three, possibly four safeties at the conclusion of this year (dependent on whether Daylan Carnell goes pro) which would leave five gentlemen in their wake, two of which will have just completed their first season on campus.
I’m assuming this staff will add one during this portal and I’m not sure if it even needs to be a starting caliber guy, given the bottle neck at the top of the depth chart. Instead, I could see taking in a 1st- or 2nd-year guy whose first school wasn’t quite what he thought it would be and is looking for a new spot. That guy won’t be pressed to start (or even contribute meaningfully) but will be around for fall practices and have a full year experience before being asked to do anything. In fact, I could see the staff taking two guys at this spot; safety is so important in Missouri’s scheme that you need to keep the depth chart stocked with at least seven guys to have a reasonable shot of having competence.
Conclusion
I’m not in the meeting rooms and have never coached a down for the Missouri Tigers, but my guess is that the portal goals for this transfer period are one offensive linemen, one linebacker, and one — possibly two — safeties.