We’ve reached the final couple of days of portal season and things have slowed down a good bit. There’s still the CFP team transfers to come and many players already in the portal don’t have their new homes yet, but it feels like a good time to look at what the Tigers have added thus far.

Quarterback

The most important addition of portal season, whether he’s the best player in the group or not, has to be the expected next Tiger starting quarterback.

The Tigers got Beau Pribula from Penn State to open Christmas week.

As Brady Cook plays his final game as a Tiger on Monday, Mizzou brought in the expected replacement for the next two seasons to bridge to hopeful quarterback of the future Matt Zollers.

Eli Drinkwitz will still have his competition in spring camp to see if Sam Horn or Drew Pyne can win the job, but with the reports of the NIL amount paid to Pribula, I expect him to start the running pretty far in the lead.

Here is my deep dive on Pribula.

Running back

The Tigers didn’t start portal season expecting to need a new body in the backfield, but with Kewan Lacy’s exit to Ole Miss came an opening that needed to be filled alongside Jamal Roberts.

In came Ahmad Hardy, one of the most impressive freshmen running backs in the country.

Hardy was one of just 41 running backs to reach 1,000 yards this season (Hardy had 1,351), and he totaled more than 1,000 yards after contact.

Coming from Louisiana-Monroe, Hardy was impressive in just about every game he played, but will jump up in competition level joining the SEC.

He, Roberts and Pribula in the backfield present a dangerous run-first offense.

Here is my deep dive on Hardy.

Wide Receiver

With the NFL exit of Luther Burden, along with the graduation of Theo Wease and Mookie Cooper and the portal exit of Courtney Crutchfield and Mekhi Miller, the Tigers needed bodies in the receiver room and a new leader for the group.

With their first portal addition of the session, the Tigers brought in St. Louis native Kevin Coleman Jr., one of the SEC’s leading receivers this year at Mississippi State.

Coleman had 932 yards and six touchdowns this year and will instantly become the Tigers’ lead option for Pribula, helping Mizzou’s large group of young, highly-rated receivers get adjusted to larger roles without needing to take the top spot.

Here is my deep dive on Coleman.

Offensive line

The Tigers had a lot of holes to fill along the offensive line with the announcement that right tackle Armand Membou would head to the NFL draft, while right guard Cam’Ron Johnson, left tackle Marcus Bryant, backup center Drake Heismeyer and backup utility lineman Mitch Walters all graduating.

The Tigers brought in a couple of new options in Michigan’s Dominick Giudice and Wake Forest’s Keagen Trost.

This is a spot the Tigers aren’t done at, as they continued hosting visits before this week’s dead period and are expected to continue working to add bodies as we move forward.

Trost and Giudice will slide into starting spots if the Tigers aren’t able to continue adding with Giudice likely taking the right guard spot and Trost slotting in at one of the tackle spots.

Here is my deep dive on Giudice.

And here is my deep dive on Trost.

Edge rusher

The Tigers had a couple of surprising portal exits early on in Williams Nwaneri and Jaylen Brown, two of the highest-rated freshman from the 2024 class, alongside the graduation of Johnny Walker.

Appalachian State’s Nate Johnson and Northwest Missouri State’s Langden Kitchen are the two additions so far and the Tigers will get Darris Smith back after he missed the season with an injury.

The Tigers tossed out a lot of offers to young edge rushers in the portal early and I expect they are still trying to bring more bodies into the room moving forward.

Here is my deep dive on Johnson.

There aren't Division II stats to use for a deep dive on Kitchen.

Linebacker

Here’s the room where the Tigers have done the best.

With the graduation of Chuck Hicks and Corey Flagg and the portal exit of Brayshawn Littlejohn, the Tigers had a lot of production to replace.

They also were expecting Tristan Newson to graduate and run out of eligibility, but the NCAA ruling this week that players who were set to run out of eligibility after this season and played in junior college will get one blanket year of extra eligibility means Newson could return next season.

I’m unsure at this point whether he’ll take advantage of that extra year.

The ruling was made to try to avoid mass lawsuits after Diego Pavia’s lawsuit to not count junior college years against NCAA eligibility. The NCAA is appealing the ruling that Pavia’s JUCO years don’t count, but wanted to avoid the rush of lawsuits that would come after the ruling.

With all that in mind, the Tigers added stud freshman linebacker Josiah Trotter from West Virginia and junior Mikai Gbayor from Nebraska.

That pair joins a room that will return Khalil Jacobs, Nick Rodriguez, Jeremiah Beasley and Brian Huff.

Here is my deep dive on Trotter.

And here is my deep dive on Gbayor.

Safety

With the graduation of Joseph Charleston, Tre’Vez Johnson and Sidney Williams, as well as the portal exit of Phillip Roche, the Tigers had some work to do to get bodies into the safety room.

The Tigers got to work adding Northern Illinois redshirt freshman Santana Banner, then brought in Virginia Tech sophomore Mose Phillips.

The pair will join returning starters Daylan Carnell and Marvin Burks as well as freshman Trajen Greco and junior Caleb Flagg.

Here is my deep dive on Banner.

And here is my deep dive on Phillips.

There was an early exodus from the Tiger specialists, with punter Orion Phillips, long snapper Jack Kautz and kickers Brody Boehm, Will Safris and Nick Quadrini all announcing their intentions to enter the portal in the first few days.

Add in the graduation of Luke Bauer and the Tigers had one kicker, no punters and two long snappers on roster for next season.

Quadrini has rescinded his portal entry and will remain with the team and the Tigers added Stanford graduate Connor Weselman to take the punter duties next year.

There will still be more movement in the coming days and there’s a whole additional portal session in the spring, but for the most part, the Tigers have their portal class completed. Without Trost or Pribula currently ranked, the Tiger class of Hardy, Trotter, Coleman, Gbayor, Banner, Giudice, Phillips, Johnson and Kitchen ranks No. 8 in the country.

Stay up to date on all the Mizzou news with your premium subscription.

Talk about this story in the story thread and discuss so much more in The Tiger Walk.

Make sure you're caught up on all the Tiger news and headlines.