Injuries took this Oregon transfer to ‘low places.’ Now he’s happy to be at Mizzou

When Alex Ofodile was a high-schooler, the Missouri coaching staff recruited him with an enticing pitch: As the best wide receiver in the state, he could come to MU and play with the best quarterback in the state, a kid from Lee’s Summit named Drew Lock.

“It’s kind of coming to life now,” Ofodile said on Saturday, a few years after the two were supposed to join forces.

Ofodile, a graduate transfer with two years of eligibility remaining, first went to Oregon before deciding to come back to his hometown and play for Mizzou. The 6-foot-2 receiver is still a “freak,” Lock said, but so far injuries and coaching changes have prevented Ofodile from becoming the impactful college football player he figured to be coming out of high school, when he was a four-star recruit and Rivals.com’s No. 2 player in the state, behind only Lock.

Two days into Missouri training camp, Ofodile is competing for playing time within a unit that lacks much proven depth. And after making just four catches for 31 yards in his first three years at Oregon, Ofodile admitted he might be trying too hard as he attempts to make a first impression on his new teammates and coaches, including his father, A.J., who coaches the Tigers’ wideouts.

The receiver has already won over Barry Odom, who hired A.J. to be his offensive coordinator at Rock Bridge High School in 2001 and has known Alex since the receiver was a boy. When Odom was defensive coordinator at Memphis, he offered Ofodile his first scholarship, but the receiver, who caught 96 passes for 1,611 yards and 15 touchdowns as a high school senior, picked Oregon.

“He broke my heart,” Odom said.

Ofodile graduated early from Rock Bridge — where he played under his dad, then the head coach — and enrolled in college in time to participate in 2015 spring practices. Then the injuries began.

“I broke my foot twice, multiple hamstrings,” Ofodile said. “The list goes on.”

He redshirted as a freshman at Oregon, and a foot injury bothered him the following spring. He was hurt again in the spring of 2017 and was unable to make an impression on then-head coach Willie Taggart’s new staff. He said he did not feel fully healthy until halfway through this past season.

In total, Ofodile played just 12 games for the Ducks and fell to what he called “some low places,” as injuries prevented him from finding his footing. Making matters worse, by the time he left the school, the Ducks had brought in a third coaching staff in three years.

“Every coach coaches in a different way. Every coach covets a different skill in a receiver,” Ofodile said. “It’s kind of hard to get to know each coach, especially when they’re going in and out like that.”

So it helped that when Alex decided he wanted to transfer, Missouri had promoted A.J. Ofodile to coach wide receivers in January. After MU’s practice on Saturday, the father said his son is “very anxious” right now and must stop pressing. He does not need to be the receiver he was in high school.

“We want him to just come in, find his footing and see where it goes from there,” A.J. Ofodile said.

Alex Ofodile believes he will be able to do a bit of everything for a Tigers receiving corps that might have to line up at different spots on the field in first-year coordinator Derek Dooley’s pro-style offense. Alex said playing for his father feels just like it did in high school, and he has another familiar comfort: his mother’s cooking.

His family helped him get out of those “low places,” and he’s happy to be home, where he might finally become a productive college receiver.

Odom is happy to have him back, too. On the receiver’s first day at Mizzou, the Tigers’ head coach said to him: “I told you it was going to happen.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2018 at 6:29 PM.