Throughout the first couple of weeks of fall camp, Khalil Oliver stood out every time he took his helmet off. The fifth-year senior safety most often wore his hair in braids last season, but had let it out during camp. Other than trimming the ends now and again, Oliver hasn’t gotten a haircut since arriving in Columbia more than a year ago.
“Just want to do it now before I’ve got to cut it down and look clean and shaven,” Oliver said of the look.
For Oliver, that time could be just a matter of months. And with the plans he’s making, a professional appearance will be important.
When the NCAA instituted a rule that students who had graduated could transfer to another school to finish their eligibility, a stipulation was put in place that the destination school had to have a degree program not available at the player’s current school. The reality is, most players will find such a major to continue their education in the field they’re really pursuing: Football.
Don’t get it confused. Like any college player in his final year, Oliver would love to keep playing after this season. But unlike many of them, he’s got a rock solid backup plan. Oliver is working an internship with the Department of Health and Senior Services in Jefferson City right now. He is considering other options, including a fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control, when he finishes up his Master’s in public health with an emphasis in epidemiology (the study of incidence, distribution and control of disease).
“I’ve really enjoyed it there and they’re giving me good ideas of what I could do after or where I should start looking,” Oliver said. “I want to see what happens at the end of this year and figure it out from there.”
“They gave him a project, late spring or early summer, put him running a division really and I got a call like two weeks into it,” Mizzou head coach Barry Odom said. “They’re like, ‘This guy’s unbelievable.’”
At the risk of generalizing, Oliver doesn’t fit into the prescribed box for the student part of your typical student-athlete.
“He is such a learner,” Odom said. “He asked me a couple days ago, he said, ‘I’m looking for some reading material. What’s your two favorite books?’ I gave them to him yesterday and he kind of looked at it and he’s kind of like, ‘I can read this overnight.’
“He’s such a thinker and processes it out and is really, really mature.”
“(Education) That was always plan A,” Lamont Oliver, Khalil’s father, said. “Everything else was a bonus. That was always the first thing to get taken care of.”
Khalil gravitated to the medical field early. His dad said he always enjoyed science classes. His aunt is a pharmacist and he would talk about potential career paths with her.
“He decided he wanted to see how he would handle the sight of blood before he decided to be a doctor,” Lamont said. “So he kind of changed routes.”
Oliver has never really been the typical college football player. They don’t produce a whole lot of them where he’s from. He grew up in Meridian, Idaho. It is the state’s third-largest city, located between Boise and Nampa, the two most populous Idaho towns. It’s a city of 75 thousand, but not exactly a destination for college recruiters.
“You don’t have a lot of Rivals or 247 out there doing a lot of recruiting and naming you and stars and stuff like that,” he said.
One coach that knew plenty about the area was Chris Petersen. He was the head coach at Boise State when Oliver was going through the recruiting process and that’s where the two-star safety from Rocky Mountain High School was set to play his college football in December of 2013.
“(Petersen) was at my house on a Tuesday night talking to me about Boise State and then on that Thursday he decided to take the job at Washington,” Oliver recalled. “I think two weeks later after the dead period ended I was contacted by him and took a visit up there and then took one to Oregon and then just started figuring out my schools from there.”
Oliver had some solid options out of high school, but maybe not as many of them as he would have had if he’d grown up in a football hotbed. He credits his high school coaching staff for helping him realize his potential wasn’t limited by what recruiting sites thought of him.
“They were always supportive and they knew my talent before I even saw it,” he said. “They were saying think bigger than just the schools you have down on paper. You can go anywhere you want.”
One of those coaches was his dad. Lamont is the running backs coach at Rocky Mountain. He coached both Khalil and his older brother.
“I coached on the other side. I didn’t want to coach them directly,” Lamont said. “It was always interesting. I’d always have to distinguish who he wanted his opinion from, if it was dad or coach.”
Lamont could provide some advice on both fronts. He had been a highly recruited football and baseball player in high school before a knee injury sidetracked his career. Khalil ended up signing with the Ducks over offers from Oregon State, Washington and Washington State. Oliver was the Oregon special teams player of the year in 2016 and made 73 tackles over two seasons before suffering a season-ending injury in the 2017 opener. He graduated and was set to transfer that spring.
"At the end of the day it’s just been something as long as he was in the right place and he felt like he was comfortable that was our main concern,” Lamont said. “It just so happened the things opened up for him to get out to Missouri.”
Missouri coaches received his tape on a Thursday night and called him on Friday morning to get him on the next plane to Columbia for an official visit. He would eventually sign with the Tigers and earn an extra year of eligibility through an NCAA hardship waiver.
“When we first learned that he was graduating and leaving we were all in because at that point needed at that position, wanted a mature guy that had some experience,” Odom said. “We had no idea initially that he had two years. You look at that, what a bonus.”
Oliver played in 12 games and made 39 tackles for the Tigers a year ago. He is currently battling for time at one of Mizzou’s three safety positions with fellow senior Ronnell Perkins.
“We spend time questioning each other and getting knowledge off each other. If I need to do something he’ll tell me. We’re always coaching each other up, asking coach questions,” Perkins said. “He’s very smart. He’s a respectful guy, he’s always doing what he’s supposed to do. He’s just a great person.”
Oliver is currently focused on making the most of his final season of college football.
The first game of that season is at Wyoming on Saturday night. The same school where Lamont spent his freshman year of college before transferring to Midland Lutheran College in Nebraska to play baseball.
“We’ve got a lot of family and some friends coming,” Lamont said. “I think I tried to get him to get 11 or 12 (tickets).”
They’ll make a few trips out to Columbia this season as well. Lamont said he’s excited to see the new South end zone facility Missouri has built. And his son may only have a dozen games left in his football career.
Beyond that, who knows? But Oliver won’t have been cheated out of any part of his college experience.
“If I can get as much free school as possible why not take advantage of it?” he said. “These schools take a lot from you, they demand a lot from you so you might as well get your money’s worth from them.”
From Meridian to Eugene to Columbia, he has certainly done that.
