Mizzou hopes KC recruiting breakthrough is just the beginning
KANSAS CITY — A year ago, speaking to reporters on the first day of the early signing period, Eli Drinkwitz said he needed to do better. Even while introducing the first top-20 class in Missouri history, he acknowledged that he and his staff came up empty in Kansas City, and it wasn’t due to a lack of SEC-caliber players in the area.
“There's always great players in Kansas City, there's great football in Kansas City, tremendous high school coaches,” Drinkwitz said. “And we just, quite honestly, we just missed. We missed on a couple of guys, weren't able to get it done. Just haven't built the inroads that we have to in order to make sure that those guys stay here.”
Fast forward a year, and Drinkwitz took on a different tone. Making the second stop in Missouri’s statewide celebration of its 2022 signing class on Wednesday, Drinkwitz stood on a stage inside the Tower Club at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium and introduced four Tiger signees from the area: defensive tackle Jalen Marshall, offensive lineman Armand Membou, wide receiver Mekhi Miller and tight end Max Whisner.
Since taking over as Missouri’s head coach a little more than two years ago, Drinkwitz has hammered home the importance of keeping local players home. In 2021, his first real recruiting class, the Tigers did just that on the east side of the state, landing seven players from the St. Louis area, but struck out in Kansas City. That wasn’t a new problem. Prior to this year, Missouri hadn’t signed a scholarship player out of the greater Kansas City area since the 2018 class. The six signing classes from 2016 through 2021 netted three total signees from the area, one of whom (wide receiver DaRon Davis) never made it to campus.
This year, Drinkwitz and his staff finally broke through in Kansas City, and with the west side of the state well represented, the local haul anchored a class that currently ranks No. 18 nationally — on pace to best last year as the highest-ranked recruiting class in program history. Ten of the 15 players who signed Wednesday hail from Missouri or just across state lines.
“I think we’ve done a tremendous job of our stated goal, which is to recruit the state of Missouri first, and to make sure that we do a tremendous job of signing the best players in this state,” Drinkwitz said. “Very proud of our staff’s effort to do that.”
A combination of factors contributed to Missouri’s recruiting resurgence in Kansas City. After last year, Drinkwitz said the staff “doubled down on our efforts” to build relationships in the area. Former tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator Casey Woods, who recently left to become the offensive coordinator at SMU, led the way as Missouri’s chief Kansas City recruiter. He made appearances at or contacted the coaches from every high school with a football team, even those without Power Five prospects. And once the Missouri staff identified a player it wanted, it recruited him relentlessly. Both Membou and Whisner said the thing that stood out most about the Tiger staff during their recruitments was sheer effort.
“I could definitely tell, especially with me, they made sure to put in effort, recruit me a lot and make sure I felt well noticed,” Membou said. “And I did, honestly. I did feel that difference. And that’s why I wanted to commit here.”
But the coaching staff also got an assist. A few months before Drinkwitz said Missouri needed to do better recruiting Kansas City, he actually landed his first commitment from the area in the form of Whisner. Almost immediately, Whisner went to work persuading other players to join him in Columbia. The gregarious Lee’s Summit tight end already knew several prospects from youth football or AAU basketball, and even if he didn’t know a Tiger target personally, he’d get in touch via social media. It got to the point that Woods would reach out to Whisner when the staff identified a prospect that it wanted to pursue and ask him to do his thing.
It wasn’t just Whisner who took up the recruiting cause, either. Drinkwitz joked Wednesday that his mother, Kelly Pollard, “has actually been named a Rivals top 25 recruiter of the year.” Pollard shared her son’s eagerness to reach out to the parents of other prospects in the class and talk about her experience with the Missouri staff. She recalled calling Michelle Marshall when Missouri ramped up its interest in her son Jalen. At that point, he was leaning toward “another school,” but Pollard and Whisner helped talk Marshall into committing to the Tigers.
Pollard’s recruiting prowess has extended beyond the Kansas City area. When Pollard and Whisner caught wind that quarterback Sam Horn and his family were taking an unofficial visit to Missouri in February, they traveled to Columbia to greet them. At that point, due to a COVID-19 induced dead period, the coaching staff couldn’t have any face-to-face contact with prospects, so Whisner and Pollard served as the Horns’ tour guide, showing them Missouri’s campus, hyping up the facilities, even explaining the weather. About two weeks later, Horn committed. The nation’s No. 5 signal-caller signed with the Tigers Wednesday.
“We had this instant chemistry with them,” Pollard said. “We really just hit it off. And so we spent the day looking at the different buildings around campus. And it was kind of funny, because at the end of the visit, when we dropped them off at the hotel, it started snowing. And I was so scared, because I said to Max, man, they’re from Georgia, it’s snowing, they’re not going to want to come here. And they were so excited when it started snowing. And then it was just, after that, Max kept in touch with Sam and the other players, and then Sam committed.”
The Missouri staff is certainly excited about what the four Kansas City signees bring to the 2021 class. Drinkwitz said Membou and Marshall bring SEC size to the two lines of scrimmage, a point of emphasis in this class. He also called Miller “an outstanding wide receiver who has position flexibility.”
“He’s a guy who takes a back seat to no one in our class as far as talent and toughness, willingness to go make a competitive catch,” Drinkwitz said.
Yet perhaps more important is the impact the staff’s breakthrough in the area can have moving forward. The three highest-ranked 2023 prospects in Missouri all hail from the west side of the state. The Tigers have already extended scholarship offers to six Kansas City area players in the class of 2023 and two to 2024 prospects. Drinkwitz said he hopes the 2022 signees signify the start of a pipeline from the region. All four echoed that goal.
“I think this is gonna absolutely start a domino effect for Missouri,” said Whisner. “That's something I've strived for since I committed, was to have this be a new thing, to get most of these in-state guys with 10 to 15 offers, highly-rated guys, to come through at Missouri and see that we’re making a big jump and we’re trying to make a statement being a part of the SEC.”
Wednesday’s recruiting reception offered tangible reason for optimism. Four-star Raytown offensive lineman Logan Reichert was in attendance, as was Shawnee Mission East quarterback Parker Leise, both 2023 prospects. And Membou assured that he continues to be in the ear of Cayden Green, his teammate on the Lee’s Summit North offensive line. Green and Reichert are both ranked among the top 100 prospects nationally.
If the example of Marshall, Membou, Miller and Whisner isn’t enough to lure the next crop of Kansas City recruits to Columbia, Missouri still has Pollard at its disposal. She’s already working on Reichert — she and Whisner had him over to watch Missouri’s matchup with Georgia (one of the top competitors to land him) earlier this season. Asked whether she would continue to recruit the parents of prospects for the Tigers, Pollard answered “absolutely.”
“We’re always willing to entertain and do what we can,” she said, “do our part to make the program successful.”
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