Cale Garrett made 291 tackles as a Missouri Tiger (and, yes, it's time to start talking about that in the past tense). Cameron Wilkins has made 13. But as of Saturday, Wilkins is going to step into the gaping hole left by Garrett in the middle of the Missouri defense.
In Saturday’s 42-10 win over Troy, Garrett tore his pectoral tendon. He had surgery on Tuesday which is almost certain to end his season and his career at Mizzou. Enter Wilkins, a true sophomore who has played in 15 career games, mostly on special teams, and made 11 tackles.
“Y’alll saw his stats,” Wilkins said. “Cale’s an amazing player. They’re some big shoes.”
In addition to the tackles, Garrett has four takeaways and three touchdowns this season. He was the SEC Defensive Player of the Week in each of the last two weeks he played.
"Video game numbers," defensive coordinator Ryan Walters said.
“He loves to catch the ball,” Wilkins said. “He’s always around the ball and Cale’s a very amazing player. Once again, I’m sorry for what happened to him, but I think Cale’s going to have an amazing career in the National Football League.”
While the production alone is staggering, Missouri loses more than that with Garrett on the shelf.
“A true veteran,” Kelly Bryant said. “A leader.”
While most Missouri fans were terrified the Tigers would be without their quarterback, it was the leader of the defense that will no longer be on the field. The one thing teammates and coaches always talked about was Garrett’s intelligence on the field. He didn’t just know what he was supposed to do; he knew what everyone else was supposed to do too.
“Most of the team we all work together,” Wilkins said. “It’s not just one person. Cale was very vocal, he knew where everybody was supposed to be, but everybody communicates on the field.”
"Everybody is looking to the sideline," Walters said. "Obviously he was the guy to make sure that guys were in the right spot. Nick (Bolton) and Cam, they do it every day in practice, and luckily we got guys around Cam or Jamal (Brooks) or whoever is going to be out there, and I’m excited to watch them play."
Asking Wilkins to fill that role is probably a little too much this soon. Fellow sophomore Nick Bolton will likely pick up a lot of that slack, but it will be a group effort. With Garrett out, the Tigers reshuffled their depth chart for week six against Ole Miss. Wilkins is slated to start alongside Bolton. Jamal Brooks has moved from the middle to backing up Bolton as the weak side linebacker and Chad Bailey is Wilkins’ understudy in the middle.
Garrett had played 253 snaps this season before he went down on Saturday. Wilkins has played 68, Brooks has played 48. Bailey hasn’t played one on defense. All three of them, though, have seen extensive special teams duty over the last year and a half.
“I think special teams helped a lot,” Wilkins said. “Being able just to get your feet wet on the field, being able to get the game speed, the physicality and everything, just really helped out overall.”
Missouri's coaches say the scheme won't change with Garrett out.
"Schematically the way we call it, we’re not going to change much," head coach Barry Odom said. "I think ten guys doing they’re job and now whoever’s in that role, now they’ve got a job to do too.
"There’s nobody around in our conference who’s feeling sorry for us and we better get to work".
“Cale wasn’t in a whole lot of man coverage," Walters said. "We were using him in some zone coverage. So I think Cam will be fine. Obviously Cale is Cale, and that type of production through four games, I don’t think I’ll ever see that again, but he’ll be alright.”
And while Garrett won’t be on the field with the Tigers, they know they’ll still hear plenty from him.
“The biggest thing I’ve seen from him is literally right when he tore it,” Bryant said. “He was just telling me how he is gonna help bring the young guys along, how they’re going to have to lean on him, just showing them what he’s done to this point to get him to where he’s at.”
This weekend, Garrett goes from player to coach while Wilkins goes from supporting role to lead actor.
“I don’t like the way it happened," he said. “But Cale put me in the right position. It’s just an amazing opportunity for me.”
