Chances are there will be times during this Missouri football season when third-year Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz wishes he could call a play for departed running back Tyler Badie.
Badie could run. Badie could catch. Badie could come very close to completely carrying an SEC team on his back.
The former Tigers captain carried the ball 268 times for a single-season program record 1,604 yards in 2021. He caught a team-high 54 passes for 330 yards. He scored a team-high 18 touchdowns, 14 on the ground and fourth through the air. Without Badie, Mizzou doesn’t get to six wins in Drinkwitz’s second season. Without Badie, Drinkwitz would be feeling a lot more pressure entering this third.
Alas, Badie is not walking through that door in 2022. He’s trying to work his way up the Baltimore Ravens’ depth chart instead. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be a part of this year’s team.
Here’s what I mean.
Do you remember how much time last season’s preseason discussion spent revolving around Badie?
Maybe a little.
But certainly not much.
None of us, and that includes Drinkwitz, were promoting 2021 as Tyler Badie Season.
Most of us were talking about how Badie and a collection of other tailbacks were going to have to figure out how to replace the steady and solid production of departed running back Larry Rountree.
Badie had 242 rushing yards on 48 attempts and four touchdowns as a junior in 2020. He caught 28 passes for 33 yards and two touchdowns that season. He was the lead back in a mix of options no one was quite sure about.
Running back post-Rountree was a question mark.
Then Badie burst forward as a surprise exclamation point.
And that’s exactly how Badie, despite being a Raven, can still influence the Tigers.
This team needs some Badies, or at least some players who do their best Badie impression.
Badie was not some hotshot five-star freshman brand new to the scene, like talented receiver Luther Burden.
He was not some highly touted Power 5 transfer, like former Florida Gator Ty’Ron Hopper, or ex-Oklahoma State defensive lineman Jayden Jernigan.
Badie was the kind of player who most often gets overlooked by fans and media and, sometimes, even by coaches.
He was the player already in the program who had been quietly putting in the work, one who managed to successfully merge steady improvement and newfound opportunity into a breakthrough few saw coming.
This team has some significant question marks.
That means opportunities for exclamation points.
Quarterback Brady Cook is the most obvious candidate. He’s the starter at the most important position on the field. He has patiently waited and worked, refusing to take the easy out of a transfer while slowly winning over a head coach who did not recruit him. If Cook pulls a Badie, meager preseason expectations for Drinkwitz’s third season could change in a hurry.
Linebacker Chad Bailey was a key factor in last season’s defensive improvements. When he played more, the defense started playing better. Good sign. Now he’s the starter from the start, and he should play with the confidence he has earned.
Safety Martez Manuel, a captain for the second consecutive season, is set to play a critical role in first-year defensive coordinator Blake Baker’s defense. He is the third safety, the “star” position. He will be asked to stop the run one play and intercept a pass the next. How he performs will go a long way in dictating how Baker’s defense debuts.
With opposing defenses likely putting a lot of attention, and rightfully so, on Burden, don’t forget about the other guys who could benefit. Tauskie Dove and Barrett Banister have risen to the rank of captains. Mookie Cooper, who has been moved to the outside of the offense, and Dominic Lovett, who has been moved to the inside of the offense, have been through the freshmen growing pains Burden must now face.
I’m still not giving up (yet) on running back Michael Cox, who has quietly averaged 8.3 yards per carry on 18 career attempts. If he can’t carve out a bigger role now, then when? Just a reminder, he was the only non-Badie running back on last year’s team to score multiple rushing touchdowns. The man runs people over. It’s not a skill to overthink, or waste.
Badie was special. There’s a reason he went from question mark, to exclamation point, to the NFL. Few can do what he did.
But multiple Tigers doing their best version of a Badie impression is indeed possible. In a healthy program, it should be expected. This season it could be the difference between an underwhelming team and one that outperforms what appear to be mild expectations.
