Damarea Crockett was 'a-call-from-momma close' to playing in Mizzou's bowl game
Near the end of Missouri’s football practice on Saturday, running back Damarea Crockett broke through the line of scrimmage and sprinted toward one of his favorite places.
“I have missed you so much, end zone!” the running back yelled as he ran away from the only safety trying to stop him.
Crockett is back to practicing fully after surgery on his right shoulder kept him out of Mizzou’s final seven games of last season.
He had been a limited participant in Mizzou’s practices just before the Texas Bowl, and head coach Barry Odom was optimistic Crockett would be able to play in that game. Crockett said Saturday — in his first meeting with reporters since before he suffered the shoulder injury — that he was “a-call-from-Momma close” to playing in Mizzou’s first bowl game in three seasons.
His mother did not want him to risk re-injury and set himself back even further from returning to be the player he was as a true freshman in 2016, when he ran for more than a 1,000 yards.
Crockett said sitting out made him eager for spring practices. It also made him more eager to be in the weight room. The 5-11 running back weighed about 203 pounds around the Texas Bowl in late December, and teammates called him “skinny” as a tease.
“It hurt so bad,” Crockett said of the word. “I just kept thinking, when this arm heals up, I’m going to get so freaking big. I just started lifting twice a day, everyday, sometimes three times a day. Just trying not to get called skinny again."
He claims to now be about 226 pounds, back near the weight he is listed at on the team roster. He said he feels “extremely close” to being just as confident on the field as he was prior to the shoulder injury.
“Once I get this (new offense) down, I’ll be feeling great,” said Crockett, who had never before played running back in an offense that put quarterbacks under center, as Missouri’s new pro-style scheme does. The running back thinks he can see plays develop better when he takes hand-offs after the quarterback comes from under center. He has more time to pick which gap to run through.
Crockett averaged 4.6 yards per carry in Missouri’s first four conference games last season. Next season, he will pair up with Larry Rountree, who ran for 703 yards as a freshman while taking on an increased role after Crockett’s injury.
“It’ll be like a never-get-a-break type of thing (for defenses),” Crockett said.
This story was originally published March 10, 2018 at 6:50 PM with the headline "Damarea Crockett was 'a-call-from-momma close' to playing in Mizzou's bowl game."