Badie eager to prove himself as lead back
For the past couple years, there’s been little mystery about who would serve as Missouri’s number one running back. Larry Rountree III led the Tigers in carries each of the past three seasons. During his four-year career, in which he rushed for at least 700 yards every season, Rountree racked up 3,720 yards and 40 touchdowns on the ground, both of which rank first all-time among running backs in school history.
Now, with Rountree gone to the NFL, there’s some uncertainty about how Missouri will replace his nearly 21 carries per game. Head coach Eli Drinkwitz said following the team’s first spring football practice last week that you don’t just replace that level of production with one guy.
Brian Stewart, the head coach at Briarcrest high school in Memphis, wouldn’t be too sure. The logical next man up in Missouri’s backfield is Tyler Badie, who has served as a change-of-pace option behind Rountree the past three years. Stewart coached Badie during his junior and senior seasons at Briarcrest, and he’s seen this movie before.
Badie transferred to Briarcrest prior to his junior year. The team already had an entrenched running back entering his senior season, so Badie primarily played cornerback during his first season there. He got a few touches on offense as well, earning more as the season went on due to his explosiveness, but he never served as more than a complimentary piece in the backfield — in part because he never complained about his role.
“He started out playing corner for us and was an unbelievable corner, and as we started to just have him, from the offensive standpoint, every time he’d get a touch, something would happen,” Stewart said in a phone interview last November. “Every time he’d get a touch, something big would happen. And I said, hey, we gotta start getting him more touches. But never a time was there, hey, it's all about me, it’s all about my touches.”
Badie entered his senior season of high school much like he’s starting his fourth year of college: eager to show what he could do as an every-down back. At that point, he was on the radar of few, if any, high-major college programs. He wound up surpassing even Stewart’s expectations.
“He never came off the field,” Stewart said of Badie’s senior season. “He was unbelievable.”
Badie carried the ball 193 times across 10 games as a senior, gaining 1,186 yards and scoring 18 touchdowns on the ground. He also caught 16 passes for 306 yards and another three touchdowns. At times, Stewart said, the team would put him at quarterback in the Wildcat formation, because even when other teams knew Badie was going to carry the ball, they usually couldn’t stop him.
“He’s capable of anything,” Stewart said. “He won a game for us several times, several games single-handedly. I mean, we’re running zone, we’re running power, we’re running counter, and he’s just back and forth, back and forth, and he just always is positive yardage. Next thing you now, he breaks that tackle, ... boom, he’s gone.”
Badie is eager to get back to that type of role once again in 2021. He’s not the type to make bold proclamations — in fact, Badie generally declines most interview requests — but speaking to reporters on Feb. 26, Badie said he has a few things in mind that he wants to prove to fans and scouts now that he’ll no longer be playing in Rountree’s shadow.
“It’s just a lot of things I just want to show to everybody,” he said. “I’m durable enough to last in the SEC, you know. A lot of times people question the amount of times I get the ball or when I do, just catching the ball. I just want to show everyone that I can also run the ball, I can do everything that you need me to do to be the feature back for Missouri.”
His durability has been the biggest question mark about Badie’s ability to serve as a bell-cow back. Badie is listed, perhaps a bit generously, as 5-foot-9, 200 pounds. He’s carried the ball more than 15 times in just one game during his college career. He battled a foot injury his freshman year that forced him to leave one game early and miss the following contest. Since then, however, Badie hasn’t missed a college game.
Stewart isn’t worried about Badie’s ability to withstand hits in the SEC. To illustrate Badie’s toughness, he recalled a game against Hernando high of Mississippi during Badie’s senior season. Late in the first half, Badie took a big hit to the ribs. During halftime, Stewart considered sitting Badie for the rest of the game. He asked Badie, on a scale of one to 10, how much pain he felt.
Badie’s response: Zero.
“He ends up going out the second half and winning the game for us,” Stewart said. “He made a couple of big runs and a big catch that won the game for us.”
Part of the reason Badie isn’t worried about his durability is he’s proven to himself that he can be effective in the SEC at his size. Early in his college career, he said, he “knew that I was tiny” and played like it, running out of bounds to avoid contact or not fighting for extra yards. But after accounting for 1,388 total yards and 14 touchdowns over the past two seasons, he knows he can make plays at this level. His goal, now, is to make more of them than anyone else in the league.
“I knew I wasn’t the biggest out there, so I kind of played like it,” Badie said. “But now I know I can compete in this league, I know I can be the best running back in this conference. And that’s what I want to show every day.”
The last time Badie got his chance to serve as an every-down back, he turned it into a scholarship at Missouri. Impressed by his senior film, the Tiger staff extended an offer, and Badie flipped his commitment from Memphis to Missouri on National Signing Day.
Stewart wholeheartedly believes that Badie can use next season to similarly boost his NFL Draft stock. He’s been telling Badie for the past four years that his ability to run between the tackles, catch the ball out of the backfield and pick up blitzers, combined with his work ethic, make him an ideal NFL third-down back.
“I think he matches what people want,” Stewart said. “The third-down guy that can go out, he can run the football, he can block, he can lay protection, and he can be a check, you know, flip it to him in the flat, or he can run an angle route and catch it. I mean, he’s got the speed and the burst to go.”
Badie knows he likely won’t quite match Rountree’s Herculean workload of 21.4 touches per game. Redshirt freshman Elijah Young will likely take over Badie’s secondary role, while senior Dawson Downing and incoming freshmen Taj Butts and BJ Harris could be in the mix for carries as well. Missouri is also pursuing former four-star Tennessee signee Cody Brown at running back.
Never one to complain about his touches, Badie said he’ll play whatever role the coaching staff asks of him. At the same time, though, he’s waited patiently for a chance to show what he can do as the leader of a college backfield. He believes he’s poised to once again surprise some people. Stewart won’t be one of them.
“I’ll do everything the coaches want me to do, but I’ve been waiting around three years for this time,” Badie said, “so I feel like I’ve matured and I’m just ready to take over where Larry left.”