Eli Drinkwitz came to Missouri known as a creative offensive mind who wasn’t afraid to throw some tricks at an opponent. And he showed that off from time to time in his first season in Columbia. But the core of Drinkwitz’s first offense at Mizzou was a power running game…or more specifically, a power running back.
Larry Rountree III carried the ball 209 times last season. The only other Tiger running backs to top more than 200 carries in a season in the last decade were Rountree in 2019, Russell Hansbrough in 2014 and Kendial Lawrence in 2012. James Franklin also hit the 200-mark as a quarterback in 2011. In all four of those seasons, the player mentioned played a minimum of 12 games. Rountree toted it 209 times in just 10 games, an average of 20.9 per contest. No individual player has averaged more carries per game for Missouri since Devin West averaged 25.7 carries a game in 1998 on his way to setting the single-season school rushing record with 1,578 yards in just 11 games.
Throw in 15 receptions last year and Rountree averaged 22.4 touches per game for 107.2 yards per game from scrimmage and 14 of Mizzou’s 30 offensive touchdowns in 2020. As Missouri opens fall camp on Friday, Rountree is busy trying to stick on the Los Angeles Chargers’ roster. And Missouri is trying to fill a huge void.
“You would think that there would be kind of running back by committee at a certain point,” Mizzou running backs coach Curtis Luper said on Wednesday. “There’s 22 touches a game for somebody in the backfield. Tyler Badie’s going to get the bulk of those. We’re looking for somebody else to help him.”
There may be a shortage of production in Rountree’s absence, but there’s not a shortage of bodies. Badie has 245 carries for 1,136 yards in his career while Elijah Young, Dawson Downing and Simi Bakare have combined for 98 carries over eight collective seasons. All are back, along with true freshmen Taj Butts and B.J. Harris.
Badie isn’t likely to carry the ball 20 times a game. Neither are any of the other backs. They’ll pick up the slack collectively and they’ll offer some versatility. Young, who figures to be the No. 2 back, is closer to Badie than Rountree.
“He’ll do a lot of the stuff, the perimeter speed sweeps that Tyler Badie did last year, Jalen Knox did last year,” Luper said. “He’ll be all over the place. He’s smart, he’s conscientious, he studies hard, he has a real good idea of what we’re trying to do and coach Drink’s gonna use his talents. He’s going to use them. We’re going to exploit defenses with him.”
What Luper isn’t sure he has is a bruiser. Connor Bazelak threw just seven touchdown passes in ten games last year. Part of that was on Missouri’s passing game, but part of it also had to do with the coaching staff’s trust in Rountree when Missouri got near the goal line.
“You know third and one, we could give the ball to Larry Rountree and run behind Case Cook and Larry Borom and Daniel Parker and we were gonna get the first down,” Luper said. “As we sit here today, I don’t know who’s going to do that for us on third and one.”
One unheralded candidate is walk-on Michael Cox, who caught a lot of eyes with a standout performance in Missouri’s spring game. Cox ran for 1,968 yards and average 8.5 per carry as a senior at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School in Georgia, but came to Mizzou as a walk-on last year.
“He’s 235 pounds and he really brings a level of physicality to our offense that we don’t have,” Luper said. “We have two freshman running backs, BJ Harris and Taj Butts, and we’ll find out exactly what happens. Mike Tyson said everybody has a game plan until they get hit in the mouth, so when they get hit in the mouth I’ll see how they respond.”
While the focus of replacing Rountree falls on the running backs for obvious reasons, the best way to replace the lost production might actually come through the air.
“I think that’s certainly something that’s been discussed,” wide receivers and quarterbacks coach Bush Hamdan said. “You’re not necessarily going to replace a guy like Larry Rountree but certainly more emphasis is going to be on the pass game being more detailed, being more productive because you’re obviously not going to be able to just rely on him like you have in the past.”
That largely falls to Bazelak, who was the SEC Offensive Freshman of the Year in 2020, starting Mizzou’s last nine games and throwing for 2,366 yards. But while he put up solid numbers, it was usually Rountree who ran the final leg of the race and pushed Missouri over the goal line.
“I think certainly year two there’s going to be a trust level with certain guys like Keke Chism and Tauskie Dove where, hey it’s not going to be wide open, but we’re going to give them a chance,” Hamdan said. “Certainly we’ve look to take he next step schematically and try to find ways to get guys open.”
Dove and Chism are the two receivers whose names you hear the most from Missouri’s coaches right now. They’re the proven commodities, the guys who have been here before. But it’s an influx of young talent that might open the playbook more for Drinkwitz in his second season. True freshman Dominic Lovett, Ohio State transfer Mookie Cooper and freshman J.J. Hester, who was hurt all of last year, offer the Tigers much more versatility than they had in the receiving corps a season ago.
“Mookie Cooper’s certainly in the mix there,” Hamdan said. “We’ve got flexibility for Tyler Badie, Elijah Young certainly and I think Dominic Lovett. In my mind, those are the four swing guys that can play a lot of different positions, that can really play that hybrid spot, which can look like a running back at times and can look like a slot receiver at times.”
Missouri was 78th in the country last year in scoring offense. The Tigers obviously need to be better this season, but they’ll also have to go about it a different way. Only six players had more rushing touchdowns than Rountree last season and only ten scored more total touchdowns. Along the way, he also set the school-record for career rushing yards by a running back.
It’s unlikely any one player fills the gaping hole Rountree left in Missouri’s offense. Instead, a number of players will be asked to each provide a little bit of the patch.
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