A Mizzou walk-on, this Bishop Miege grad is contributing at running back

Bishop Miege coach Jon Holmes and some of his assistants went to Notre Dame last weekend to watch the Irish play North Carolina State. The Wolfpack’s head coach is a Miege grad, as are two current Irish players. Heavily favored Notre Dame won, and when the coaches returned to a townhome, they saw something they might’ve expected.

“We all kind of screamed,” Holmes said of what happened soon after he and his assistants began watching the Missouri-Connecticut football game. “Then we all kind of looked at each other and said, ‘We’ve seen that before.’”

That was Missouri running back Dawson Downing’s impressive run in the Tigers’ win over the Huskies. Dawson ran about 15 yards upfield before dropping his right shoulder into a Connecticut defender, who then dropped to the ground as the Miege grad kept running. Referees called the play back because of a penalty, which Downing knew would happen, but the running back said the run was “kind of a mentality thing,” a statement.

Even without the impressive run, Downing finished with 60 yards on 10 carries against the Huskies. And considering Downing is a walk-on who didn’t receive a single FBS scholarship offer, that was perhaps more than his current coaches expected out of the redshirt freshman this early in his career. But a shoulder injury that is keeping Damarea Crockett out indefinitely has made Downing the Tigers’ No. 3 running back.

In the past two games, both blowouts, Downing has seen his only action this season. He has run for 90 yards on 13 carries. And he played more a week ago against Connecticut — about a quarter of the snaps among running backs — than he did versus Idaho.

“We thought if he came here, (if) he worked hard, he’d be a guy that potentially down the road could come here and earn a scholarship,” MU running backs coach Cornell Ford said. “I think he’s on the right track.”

Downing is not particularly fast, but he ran for more than 1,900 yards in both his junior and senior seasons. Northwest Missouri State expressed interest. So did Columbia. But Downing wanted an FBS scholarship, and when he didn’t get it, he decided to be a preferred walk-on at Mizzou, where he could prove — to himself and to others — that he was better than some college coaches believed. He also wanted to prove he was a running back and not safety, a position Kansas and Kansas State told him they thought he might play.

Downing, whose father Ken played for Missouri in the 1970s, has never been intimidated. He played in a state championship game as a 13-year-old freshman.

“You have to be confident if you’re going to walk on at any program — especially a program like this in the SEC,” Ford said. “You have to be more confident in yourself than what other people are.”

Now Downing fits in with the Tigers, and the notion that he could play anything other than running back leaves his teammates incredulous. Tuesday, offensive lineman Yasir Durant draped his left arm over Downing and whispered in his ear while the running back talked to reporters. When Durant heard Downing had garnered interest as a safety, he practically shrieked.

“No way!” Durant said. “Not even possible! No! Safety? Noooo!”

“Who ever said safety?” Ford asked moments later. “I think he’s at the right position.”

And Downing thinks he’s with the right team.

This story was originally published October 31, 2017 at 8:59 PM with the headline "A Mizzou walk-on, this Bishop Miege grad is contributing at running back."