Sitting together during an official visit weekend in June, Jack Abercrombie and Tim Taggart started talking about the next wave of Pennsylvania talent.
Missouri, which anchored its 2025 signing class with signal caller Matt Zollers, wasn't done looking east, and Taggart had just the guy for the Tigers' assistant offensive line coach.
Taggart recommended jumping in on Maxwell Hiller, a 6-foot-6, 300-pound sophomore offensive tackle. Taggart, the quarterbacks coach at Wyndmoor (Pa.) La Salle College High School and personal coach of Zollers, is close friends with Vinnie Williams, the offensive coordinator at Coatesville (Pa.) Coatesville Area Senior, where Hiller plays.
"You guys got to get after him now," Taggart said then. "I remember giving three or four of their coaches all of Max's information."
Abercrombie offered Hiller by late October and got him on campus to Missouri for the program's Junior Day on Jan. 18. Hiller isn't an under-the-radar talent, ranking No. 55 nationally in the Class of 2027, but the Tigers weren't regulars in his home state until now.
"It shows that they have good recruiting to come out all this way from Missouri all the way to PA to recruit," Hiller said in October. "So it's definitely great to see."
Abercrombie rejoined the Missouri staff ahead of the 2023 season after previously serving as an offensive graduate assistant in 2020-2021. He spent the prior two seasons as the offensive line coach and run game coordinator, for only 2022, at the Virginia Military Institute.
A native of Horsham, Pennsylvania, Abercrombie played and coached collegiately in his home state, and over the past decade and a half, those connections to Pennsylvania have bled into his ability to recruit the area.
"Jack Abercrombie, he's definitely going to be an up-and-coming coach in the near future," Taggart said.
Abercrombie knows two staffers at La Salle College High School well in offensive line coach Mark Schmidt and defensive line coach David Sowers. Schmidt and Sowers have built success at multiple stops in Pennsylvania, leaving fingerprints across the state in coaching and recruiting.
"Jack's a big part," Taggart said. "Not a lot of people understand these under-the-radar coaches, younger coaches, guys that are maybe lower-end assistances. They're the ones that have a lot of the big-time relationships and connections.
"They do a lot of the dirty work behind the scenes, where they're studying, watching all the film of all these guys, and they're trying to find the diamonds in the rough. They're trying to use their connections and everything, and it's paying off big time for programs like Mizzou."
The eastern half of Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, is where Missouri found Zollers as well as a trio of La Salle College High School players -- Grayson McKeogh, Joey O'Brien and Gavin Sidwar.
Missouri offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kirby Moore traveled to La Salle College High School on Tuesday to workout Sidwar, a Class of 2026 three-star quarterback, who received an offer from the Tigers after a conversation with Moore.
Moore told Sidwar he wanted to host him for a one-on-one visit this spring, making the quarterback the focal point for the Tigers in whatever weekend they decide to schedule a trip.
Missouri made it a point of emphasis to make offers more personal with players, getting on high school campuses to talk with recruits. The Tigers did that with Sidwar and McKeogh, another player Taggart put on Abercrombie's radar this past summer.
"The thing that I think separates Missouri, apart from a lot of other programs that would be interested in kids from Pennsylvania, is the actual town," Taggart said. "The school is located in the middle of the town, so that was one of the things for Matt. Matt saying this, 'It feels like I'm back in Royersford, Pennsylvania.'"
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