Missouri had the same man snapping the ball just about every play in the 2022 season, the 2023 season and most of the 2024 season.
But Connor Tollison got hurt against Oklahoma and had to miss the rest of the season marking the first time since 2021 he was not the Tigers’ starting center.
And with a year of eligibility left, Tollison got to work on his recovery, but that’s not all he’s been up to.
Tollison is a graduate student majoring in sports management, and one of his classes led him to some work across town at Rock Bridge High School.
Since February, Tollison has been working with the Bruins’ football team and coach Matt Perkins.
“When I announced that he was coming to help, I immediately got a text from, last year he was my starting center, Barrett Armbruster,” Perkins said. “And Barrett was like, ‘Coach, are you kidding? Is this for real?’ He was the first player that told me Connor is his favorite football player.”
Arbruster said he was instantly excited to get to work with Tollison. He said he had looked up to Tollison for years, so getting to work with him felt surreal at first.
"Very quickly, I relalized he was here to help us as a group and genuinely cared about making us better," Arbruster said. "I started to comprehend his understanding of the game and he helped us implement things into our game immediately."
Perkins said Armbruster wasn’t the last one to tell him Tollison was his favorite player.
Growing up in Columbia, the Rock Bridge students have been watching Tollison closely during his time with the Tigers and knew getting to work with him was a special opportunity.
Tollison got started at Rock Bridge in February, mostly helping in the weight room and watching film because of the state’s rules around on-field work.
“When he started back in February, we had a lot of juice from our kids, they were super excited,” Perkins said. “... That was really cool, it just kind of lifted the room up. Then, once we started with our spring ball stuff, he’s been around for that, we’ve been able to do some drill work with him and he’s just been really sharp in our film stuff.”
Perkins said bringing the view you need to see the game at the SEC level down to the speed of the high school game gives Tollison a view of the field that has been incredibly helpful.
"It's been pretty cool being able to learn from him and hear his perspective," Armbruster said. "He talks about weight room aspects of energy and helping with technique, watching film with us and giving feedback at a higher level of coaching and understanding. ... He's helped with being able to make calls, types of sets and hand games taht you aren't coached every day."
Because of how well the players have absorbed those lessons from Tollison, Perkins said he has a couple of key aspects that could help him in a future coaching career if he wants one.
“He’s willing to talk,” Perkins said. “We’ve got grown men that are in Year 3 and 4 as coaches that sometimes don’t feel comfortable using their voice. But Connor’s not like that, he’s ready to go.”
Perkins said Tollison isn’t just speaking up, he’s being listened to. Sometimes, it can be hard for coaches to get high school players to take in what they’re trying to teach, but Tollison is connecting and getting the kids to understand and perform what the coaches have been pushing.
“He made a really, like, simple coaching point on watching film (Wednesday) with our guys and talking about hand placement,” Perkins said. “He’s explaining hand placement to these guys and it’s stuff that coach (Tony) Palmer (yes the Tony Palmer who played for Missouri from 2002-2005 and went on to play for the St. Louis Rams and Green Bay Packers after being drafted in the seventh round in 2006) and myself have talked about with them before and harped on and really emphasized over the course of the last few years. Connor brought it up in film, like, ‘Hey, where’s your hand got to be?’ And in unison, they’re all like, ‘Outside shoulder, outside peck, outside peck, outside peck.’ So I know they’re dialed into him. … Having that new voice, a fresh face, a guy down the road at the Zou, all that’s been pretty inspiring.”
That new voice has been teaching the Bruins some big lessons on how to improve their game and the specifics have been very helpful, Armbruster said. But the thing that has stood out the most isn't necessarily the on-field coaching aspects.
"He also is a leader and guys look up to him and respect him," Armbruster said. "He's been tremendous with helping out this spring and you can feel that he genuinely cares. It's been cool building a relationship with him in this short period, but he's been a great dude."
Since Tollison is working with the Bruins for class, Perkins said he expects his work to technically be done in May and definitely by June as that is the timeline for Tollison to return from his injury. But Perkins had a message for Tollison about that timeline.
“I told him earlier this week, he’s hired,” Perkins said. “When he’s done playing the game, whether it’s next year or five years or whenever down the road, I’ll pay him, he’s fun.”
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