Growing up around gaited horses, Ahmad Hardy, the Missouri Tigers’ newest running back, had to learn the hard way that when you get knocked down, you get back up.

“My papa had American saddle bred horses and I liked the way he rode,” Hardy said. “I used to be scared though. I finally got on and got bucked off and I stopped for a while, but my papa told me the horse was more scared of me than I was of them, and ever since then, I liked to ride and tame them.”

Hardy said he’s taken that lesson in perseverance onto the football field where he became one of the premier running backs in the transfer portal following the 2024 season.

“Now I’m not scared of anything but the good Lord,” Hardy said. “But in life, I know I’ve always got to get back up, and that brought me to the thought when I play football that I’m willing to die out there doing something I love.”

Growing up in Monticello, Mississippi, a town of about 1,400 people, there weren’t a lot of chances for the 5-foot-10 runner to get noticed, though he rushed for 2,442 yards and 27 touchdowns as a senior and 1,397 yards and 16 touchdowns in just eight games as a junior.

“I was under the radar, but had the stats to prove that I was a top recruit who got looked past,” Hardy said. “I had very few opportunities, but I did my best to take advantage of them.”

Those opportunities led Hardy to become a Louisiana-Monroe Warhawk, going about three hours northwest to join a school that had been struggling with the Sun Belt conference for a while, last posting a bowl-eligible season in 2018 and last going over .500 in 2012.

Hardy saw success almost instantly, running for 103 yards and a touchdown in the Warhawks’ season opener against Jackson State.

“The playbook and learning fronts of the game was a big transition,” Hardy said. “But playing ball wasn’t. After my first touch of college football, I knew that this was a place that was meant to be and when I got going, I was just going off God-given talent and what I worked for.”

That combo of talent and hard work led Hardy to eight 100-yard games in his true freshman season, including two 200-yard games, as he totaled 1,351 yards and 13 touchdowns. And if you dive a little deeper, Hardy became a premier player with his ability to make tacklers miss and continue running through contact.

He forced 91 missed tackles and gained 1,012 yards after contact. That missed tackles number had him behind only Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty and Arizona State’s Cam Skattebo, who both got at least one more game than Hardy, and he was one of just seven running backs in the country this year to end with 1,000 yards after contact.

Then Hardy hit the transfer portal and unlike in his high school recruiting process, the calls started coming in from everywhere as the previously-overlooked runner couldn’t be looked past anymore.

“There were calls all over,” Hardy said.

Hardy had visits scheduled for multiple SEC schools, attending a trip to Ole Miss before coming to Columbia ahead of a scheduled trip to Kentucky.

But that trip to Kentucky never materialized as Hardy committed to become a Mizzou Tiger on the spot in Columbia.

“The staff at Mizzou seemed very genuine and down to earth,” Hardy said. “And there are also a couple people from my hometown up there.”

Hardy said the zone/stretch-heavy run scheme the Tigers have had so much success with recently helped convince him as well after he spent most of last season running through zone blocking schemes.

As Hardy enters his first season with Mizzou, taking in that mindset he learned so long ago getting bucked off his father’s horse, the Tigers have their next overlooked, under-recruited running back willing to give everything he has on the field.

“I know that I’m willing to get up after every play, no matter what happens,” Hardy said.

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