It's a tale as old as time...or at least as old as recruiting rankings. An unheralded prospect, with few if any other Power Five offers, signs with Missouri. The commitment is met with little more than the standard minimal level of excitement that is reserved for any commitment because, after all, there are only about 25 of them in any given year.
Then, suddenly, the underalded prospect becomes a damn good college football player. And before you know it, the guy nobody had heard of is preparing for a future in National Football League.
Don't look now, but it's about to happen again.
In the 2017 recruiting class, Barry Odom signed six two-stars. Two of them, O'Shae Clark and Caleb Sampson, left the program before they played a game. Two more, Chris Turner and Kobie Whiteside, are still in Columbia, taking advantage of an extra year of eligibility due to COVID-19 to bolster Eli Drinkwitz's defensive line.
The other two hope to hear their names called in April's NFL Draft.
Tyree Gillespie had seven offers out of high school in Ocala, FL. The only other Power Five school to extend an offer was Iowa State. The week before he visited Mizzou, Gillespie took a trip to Tulane. He was supposed to visit Florida Atlantic the weekend before National Signing Day in 2017, but committed to the Tigers on his visit and shut down the process.
It didn't take long for Gillespie to make an impression in Columbia. During fall camp of his freshman season, Tiger coaches were talking about him as a guy who could play on Sundays. He saw action in seven games, mostly on special teams, and made two tackles that season. But the staff loved his athleticism so much he actually spent a couple weeks practicing at running back when the Tigers' depth was tested.
“He’s a high level athlete," Odom said back then. "I think when it’s all said and done he’s got a chance positionally to help us a lot of different ways and he’s going to have a great career.”
He would go on to make 144 tackles, including six for a loss, over the next three seasons. As a general rule, when Gillespie hit an opponent, the opponent knew it.
"I love the physicality of the game," he said said. "Wherever you put me at on the field, just let me go make plays."
That NFL future that was predicted way back when is now close to becoming a reality. He did nothing to hurt his stock with a 4.38 40-yard dash time at Mizzou's pro day that he called "very expected." Opinions vary on Gillespie and he'll have to wait a few rounds to hear his name called, but could get a shot he's been waiting on as long as he can remember.
"It's really been my mentality all throughout life," Gillespie said. "I had coaches in high school and middle school and they uplifted me and said 'Out of all the guys, you're one of those guys that I can see actually doing things and sticking to football and actually making it somewhere. So I took that and I just ran with it."
Larry Borom was discovered by Mizzou at a camp in Michigan his junior year. He visited for the Tigers' Night at the Zou Camp later that summer and was hard to miss. Borom was listed at 6-foot-6, 335 pounds, but that weight was probably a little on the light side. He was a mountain of a man, but not considered much of a prospect.
The only other offer Rivals.com listed for Borom was from Eastern Kentucky. He committed to the Tigers in July before his senior season and didn't look around.
Borom turned into Mizzou's best offensive lineman in 2020. He was graded as the Tigers' top offensive player by PFF College, which tagged him with allowing only four quarterback pressures (and one sack) on 324 pass blocking snaps in eight games. He was only a redshirt junior, but declared early for the NFL Draft.
"As the season just progressed it kind of came about," Borom said. "It was something I prayed on and talked to my family about and we felt the timing was right. This whole past couple years was very unprecedented times and was different so we felt the timing was everything.
Since that time, he's focused mostly on losing weight. He'd gotten in better shape since coming to college, but still played at around 350 pounds this season. He weighed in at 322 on pro day and looked noticeably more fit.
"That was something I really just attacked head first going out there to train," Borom said. "The workouts were hard, but I loved it."
Borom said he's hearing he has a good chance to go on the second day of the draft in April. Not bad for a two-star.
"I know anything can happen," Borom said. "I'm really not focused on the draft per se. I'm just focused on playing football and bettering myself. When that day comes, everything will work itself out."
In that same class, the Tigers signed a running back out of Raleigh, NC. It wasn't a state Mizzou had ever recruited before, but A.J. Ofodile uncovered Larry Rountree III and the Tigers were convinced they had to expand their horizons for the Millbrook High star.
The bruising back ran for 1,200 yards and 20 touchdowns as a senior. But nobody noticed. Boston College had offered. Appalachian State, Miami (OH) and James Madison did too. That was it, other than the Tigers.
"My situation on getting eligible and fighting my way into college, I think it was meant for me to go through that," Rountree said. "My process was, I would say no other kid would have been able to prosper through that. It was just a mess, I would say."
All Rountree did over four seasons was run for 3,720 yards, the most ever by a Missouri running back. He did it on a staggering 746 carries, averaging just a shade under five yards per carry and scoring 40 touchdowns. So Rountree can run. Everybody knows that. He spent pro day trying to show scouts from the 29 NFL teams in attendance what else he could do.
"Not only I did running back drills, but I went right into receiver drills and did all those. Hopefully it shows that as the game gets tougher, I get stronger and I don't get tired.
"The last two months, I was catching balls. I've always had hands, I just never got a chance to showcase them. But I've always worked on my hands and getting them better, catching balls from different angles, working on different things like that."
Rountree isn't a sure-fire draft pick. He's got a shot. If he doesn't hear his name called, he'll be in a camp. And all Rountree has ever needed is a chance to show he belongs.
"The only thing I can control is how I play," Rountree said. "If you're thinking another guy's better than me, at the end of the day, I know what I can do."
Throwing Nick Bolton in this group of unheralded recruits might be a bit of a stretch. He was rated the nation's 33rd-best inside linebacker and claimed 16 offers. But only a half dozen of those came from Power 5 schools and it wasn't exactly a who's who list: Boston College, Kansas, Indiana, Colorado, Mizzou and Mississippi State.
"“A lot of Power 5 schools, a lot of schools even in our own conference, didn’t believe that I was tall enough, that I was fast enough, that I was able to play at this caliber,” Bolton told The Athletic last September.
He had an offer from Washington where he was briefly committed. As he began to listen to other schools, Washington chose to move on from him. He opened up his recruitment and the Tigers were the beneficiary. And, oh, did they benefit.
In less than three full seasons, Bolton made 224 tackles, including 15.5 for a loss. He broke up 13 passes, intercepted two and had six sacks. He was the closest thing to a sought after prospect as is on this list and he's the only sure-fire NFL Draft pick come April.
Most prognosticators have Bolton going late in the first round or in the second. He isn't picky.
"It would be a great experience to be a first round pick, but at the end of the day, once you go in and put the logo on your helmet, nobody really cares where you're picked. It's about production at that point," Bolton said. "I feel like I can play in the NFL and be a high caliber player."
It is likely Bolton who was the main reason all but three NFL teams sent personnel to the Tigers' pro day on Monday. He was followed particularly closely by Pittsburgh Steelers' inside linebackers coach Jerry Olsavsky, who put Bolton through position drills and chatted with his family during breaks. The Steelers pick 24th in the first round.
"I had a Zoom call with the Steelers this week," Bolton said. "The biggest advice was just stop being so hard on myself. That's something I took for today. I'm my biggest critic and it shows. I live off my facial expressions and my emotions."
Bolton said he has talked to about three-quarters of the teams in the league. He doesn't know exactly when, but knows his name will be called in April. The other three here hope to have solidified their chances on Monday to impress someone enough to earn a shot at an NFL roster. The long-true mantra of the draft is that it only takes one team. For this group of Tigers, that team--and not a whole lot of others--on the college level was Missouri. They took full advantage of the opportunity. And now they hope for one more.
"If somebody would have told me this would happen," Rountree said, "I would have looked at them and I would have told them 'you're a joke.'"
