When Missouri commit Mekhi Miller first started playing football, he never envisioned himself playing wide receiver at the college level — mainly because he never lined up at the position. The Kansas City area native got his introduction to the sport playing running back and defensive back for his youth teams. It wasn’t until sixth grade, when he started to grow taller (Miller now stands 6-foot-1) that his father suggested Miller try his hands at receiver.
“I started to grow and my dad was talking to me about, like, depending on how tall you get, you might want to switch positions to protect your knees,” Miller explained. “Because there’s not a lot of tall running backs. There’s a few, like Derrick Henry, but he’s special.”
It didn’t take long after making the switch for Miller to realize that, not only did he have the natural athleticism to excel at receiver, he loved his new position. Yet he’s thankful he didn’t find it sooner.
Miller, rated the No. 48 receiver in the 2022 class, believes his time spent playing defense and running back helped make him an SEC-caliber wideout. He credits his experience on the other side of the ball for his ability to read coverages and create separation from defensive backs, and once he gets open and catches a pass, he’s back to making tacklers miss like he did as a running back. Across 10 games last season, Miller racked up 1,065 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns.
“Once you get the ball in your hands, then basically you’re a running back again,” Miller said. “When you’re running routes, that’s when you’re a receiver. After you catch the ball, you turn into a running back.”
Adam Pummill, Miller’s coach at Blue Valley North high school, believes that skillset combined with Miller’s willingness to study the game will make him an ideal fit at Missouri. While he acknowledged that Miller possesses the natural ability necessary to play at the next level, Pummill spent more time raving about Miller’s work ethic and maturity.
An example: Using the Hudl app, Pummill can track which of his players are watching film each week, and how much time they spend doing so. Every week, he said, the top two film-watchers on Blue Valley North’s team were Miller and his quarterback.
“He’s very, very cerebral as a wide receiver and understands the position very well and how to utilize proper releases and stems and things of that nature,” Pummill said. “And so that’s just somewhat rare to see in a high school guy.”
Pummill believes Miller can do just about everything he’s asked at the receiver position. But he’s at his best when he’s able to create separation quickly, on routes like slants and pivots. Once he gets the ball, his natural ability to make players miss takes over. Pummill believes that makes Miller an ideal fit for Eli Drinkwitz’s offense at Missouri. Last season, about 65 percent of the Tigers’ passing attempts traveled less than 10 yards downfield, and receivers got the ball on running plays 17 times.
“They’ll be able to move him around a little bit and kind of take advantage of what he does best,” Pummill said. “I think at the next level he could kind of play either inside or outside, but I think he really excels when he’s on whips and pivots and routes of that nature.”
Miller didn’t wait very long to pull the trigger on a commitment to Missouri. He received an offer from the Tiger staff in April of last year and committed by January, despite not having taken a recruiting visit to campus to that point.
It wasn’t just the fit in Missouri’s offense that sold Miller on the Tigers. He connected better with the Mizzou staff than any other coaches. And he wasn’t only hearing from Drinkwitz and wide receivers coach Bush Hamdan. Miller said Missouri stood out because he formed a bond with virtually the entire staff, despite his entire recruitment being virtual.
“With the other schools, it was mainly just kind of the head coach and the position coach,” Miller said. “But I knew it must be important to them if they had their whole staff reaching out to me and just wanting to build that bond with me.”
Since committing to Missouri, Miller has visited campus for a few of the Tigers’ open practices during the spring. He’s planning to return to campus for the Night at the Zou event on June 2, and he wants to take another official visit for a home game during the fall. Miller is also looking into taking a few visits to other schools as well once the NCAA lifts its recruiting dead period on June 1. The only other school he has set a visit up with is Indiana.
Even though he may visit elsewhere, Miller assured that he’s still “100 percent” committed to Missouri. Not only does he see himself thriving while playing for the Tigers, he wants to help create a pipeline of talent from Kansas City to Columbia.
“I firmly believe Mizzou is just going to get better along the years,” Miller said. “Every year they’re going to improve, and with the recruiting class that we have right now, that they’re building for 2022, especially with the ones in the KC area, I feel like we’re going to do well and then a lot of other people are going to realize that and it’s just going to build a nice pipeline.”
