Just over one year ago, Missouri running backs coach Cornell Ford approached running back Tyler Badie and offered Badie scholarship. Badie met the offer with skepticism. At the time, Badie had already committed to Memphis, his hometown school. No Power Five programs had offered him a scholarship. Yet here was Ford, telling Badie that, despite the fact that Missouri would return Damarea Crockett and Larry Rountree III to its 2018 backfield, the Tiger coaching staff believed he could the field as a true freshman. It took a few weeks of convincing, Ford recalled, to assure Badie that the staff actually envisioned a role for him right away.
“Once we convinced him that everybody at Memphis would love to come to Missouri, why would you not do it, he finally listened,” Ford said. “And thank heavens he did.”
Ford kept his promise. Serving as the change-of-pace back behind Crockett and Rountree, Badie carried the ball 80 times this season for 407 yards and two touchdowns, and he caught another 11 passes for 125 yards. He also served as the team’s primary kickoff returner. On Dec. 6, Badie was voted by the SEC coaches onto the league’s all-freshman team. It’s the second season in a row Missouri has had a tailback voted onto the all-freshman team, as Rountree made the list as an all-purpose player in 2017. The year prior, Crockett didn’t make the team, but he rushed for a Missouri freshman record 1,062 yards in 11 games.
To have such a productive succession of true freshman running backs is unusual in the SEC, but not unheard of. After all, Alabama signed Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson and Eddie Lacy in consecutive recruiting classes. But what sets apart the production of Missouri’s trio is that Crockett, Rountree and Badie were not five-star, can’t-miss prospects. Crockett earned a four-star rating but only had two Power Five offers aside from Missouri out of high school. He committed to Boise State before Missouri’s staff extended an offer. Rountree, a three-star prospect, only had an offer from Boston College. And the two-star Badie didn’t have a single Power Five offer until Missouri came along.
The consistency with which Missouri’s running backs have out-performed their recruiting rankings begs the question: What does the Tiger coaching staff do differently in its evaluation process? Ford didn’t divulge all the staff’s secrets, but he said the main thing that sets it apart is that the coaches doesn’t care what other schools think about a prospect. The staff trusts its own evaluation process.
“We really don’t care if other people are recruiting him or he’s not getting recruited by this school,” Ford said. “We go through our process and our evaluation, and if we believe that he passes that and he can do the things we need for him to be able to do, we recruit him.”
Jeff Weaver, who coached Crockett in high school at Little Rock Christian Academy, still wonders why more schools didn’t recruit his star running back in 2016. Crockett attended several recruiting camps as a sophomore and junior, and Weaver said he drew attention from several Power Five schools, including home-state Arkansas. But the Razorback staff found another running back in the class it liked better. Several other schools, such as Georgia, seemed on the verge of offering Crockett, but the offers never materialized (Georgia wanted Crockett to play linebacker, and he told the coaches he’d rather play running back). Even one of the two Power Five schools that did extend an offer to Crockett, Arizona State, offered around 10 running backs in the same recruiting class, Weaver said, and Crockett worried he might get nudged out of the class at the last minute.
Rountree and Badie had more clear-cut reasons for being underrated. Rountree played behind future Georgia Tech running back Marcus Marshall and didn’t make his high school varsity team until his junior year. Badie, who had to overcome the additional hurdle of being considered undersized, switched schools after his sophomore season, then played primarily at cornerback as a junior before transitioning to running back as a senior.
Regardless, Ford saw something in each player that suggested he could contribute in the SEC. For Crockett, it was his blend of size and speed. Rountree’s physical running style and ability to gain yards after contact stood out, as did Badie’s toughness for a player his stature. Those are the key qualities Ford values most in running backs.
“You always look for speed,” Ford said. “… We look for pad-level type guys, guys that will run behind their pads. And then are they physically tough? Now, feet are extremely important as well. Can he make a guy miss?”
Ford also looks for more than just those athletic attributes. He wants running backs who are confident, who believe in themselves despite what recruiting services or other coaches may say, yet who are also willing to share the workload. After all, Missouri’s current system rotates Crockett, Rountree and Badie almost equally. A prospect who pouts if he doesn’t get 20 touches won’t last in the Tiger offense.
“We’ve been recruiting kids that aren’t selfish players,” Ford said. “If you come here and you’re a selfish player, you probably aren’t going to last very long, because you’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
Crockett, Rountree and Badie all fit that bill. Weaver said that Crockett didn’t shy away from carrying the ball — one game he carried it 53 times, including taking direct snaps for the game-winning touchdown and ensuing two-point conversion — but he was willing to share the workload. Clarence Inscore, Rountree’s high school coach, and Brian Stewart, Badie’s coach for his final two seasons of high school, raved about both players’ team-first attitude and willingness to wait their turn.
Ford cited the selflessness in the running backs room as one reason why Missouri’s true freshmen have had so much success in recent years. The returning running backs aren’t scared of sharing reps, so they help the newcomers develop.
“The Crocketts of the world, Ish Witters of the world, when those guys come in here, I depend on them to teach these young guys a lot,” Ford said. “There’s a lot of time in the summer that we’re not allowed to be with them, so it’s real important that our older guys teach the younger guys how we do things.”
That brings up another aspect of Missouri’s recent running back success. Not only has Ford and the staff identified talented players in seemingly unlikely places, it’s been able to develop those players into college contributors, and develop them quickly. Ford credited strength and conditioning coach Rohrk Cutchlow for transforming players’ bodies over the summer. Asked how Crockett has developed most since his high school days, Weaver immediately pointed to his strength.
“I’ve been impressed that he’s been able to even improve upon (his strength),” Weaver said, “because he was already just a beast. But he continues to just get stronger and stronger.”
Ford also said he puts freshmen through a “meat grinder” during fall camp, throwing them into game-like scenarios designed to make them uncomfortable. He believes the quickest way for a newcomer to learn the offense is by being forced to do it.
“I’m going to put them through a grinder just to see if they can physically do it, and mentally do it as well,” Ford said. “That sometimes slows the process, too, they can’t pick up the offense fast enough. But all of those guys were able to do that.”
Missouri’s coaches believe they have found another diamond in the rough in the 2019 recruiting class. Three-star prospect Anthony Watkins starred for South Hills high school in Texas’ Class 5-A, yet he only received one offer Power Five school aside from Missouri. All Watkins did his senior season was rush for 2,601 yards and score 35 total touchdowns in 10 games.
Ford compared Watkins’ senior tape to that of Rountree. He admitted that, once again, he wondered why so few other schools had noticed Watkins, but that didn’t stop him from extending an offer.
“I was sitting there, and I was like, why is no one recruiting him? You're right there, he's right down the road, probably 10-15 minutes from the campus of TCU,” Ford said. “You know what? I really don't care. We're going to go by our evaluation and he fits the bill around here in what we're looking for in our running backs."
Missouri’s backfield looks like it will be crowded again in 2019. Watkins will join Crockett, Rountree and Badie, as well as freshman Simi Bakare, who worked his way onto the field toward the end of the season and rushed for 53 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries. But Ford told Watkins what he tells every running back recruit, regardless of his rating: If you produce, the opportunity for playing time will present itself.
That willingness to take a chance on unheralded prospects and give those players opportunities to showcase their skills as soon as they get to campus has made Missouri’s running backs group one of the deepest in the SEC.
“I tell every recruit that the best players play,” Ford said. “Simple as that. ... And I think my track record’s been pretty good with giving kids opportunities. You gotta earn it. We’re going to go through a meat grinder, you’re going to go through a lot of tough days. But if you can get through it and we trust you when you come out of here, you can be a Tyler Badie that can go in against a Purdue at the end of the game, and the game’s on the line and we got you on the field.”
