‘It hurt my soul:’ Drew Lock and Mizzou’s NFL Draft prospects react to bowl ban

While he was training in California in mid-February for the NFL Draft, former Missouri offensive tackle Paul Adams woke up to a barrage of texts from current Tigers center Trystan Colon-Castillo.

“We’re having a team meeting in 10 minutes,” Colon-Castillo texted Adams. “I think it’s about the whole tutor thing.”

Adams told his former teammate that he was overthinking things and not to worry. Throughout his career, a team meeting in the offseason happened every now and again.

Fifteen minutes after the meeting ended, Colon-Castillo called Adams and gave him the news. Despite cooperating with the NCAA throughout the academic fraud scandal, Missouri was handed a postseason ban for the 2019 season along with severe recruiting restrictions in football, baseball and softball.

At the NFL Combine this week, some of Missouri’s players did not hold back when discussing the NCAA’s ruling and the ridiculousness of it, given that the athletic department tried to be part of the solution.

“It kind of shows a bit, you go out of your way to tell the truth and it bites you in the (behind),” said Adams. “It’s a bitter taste in my mouth.”

Tight end Kendall Blanton went a step further than Adams, saying the NCAA’s ruling isn’t fair to the players, given that none on MU’s current roster had their work done by Kumar and therefore had nothing to do with the scandal.

Blanton had Kumar as a tutor for a class and said he didn’t pass it, partly because he said Kumar was poor at tutoring. The 6-foot-6 tight end said Kumar never offered to do his work or anything else improper. When retaking the class, he got a new tutor. Blanton didn’t specify the class he was in when being tutored by Kumar.

“Y’all would bleep out what I want to say,” Blanton said. “They complied, they did everything they could to comply with the NCAA and get slapped in the face.”

Missouri notified the NCAA on Feb. 16 that it plans to appeal the NCAA’s ruling and now is in the process of preparing its appeal. Athletic director Jim Sterk said the department has retained Kansas City attorney Michael Glazier, his partner Rich Evrard and Florida lawyer Chris Griffin to help with its appeal. Missouri doesn’t know yet how much it will pay in legal fees.

Former Missouri quarterback Drew Lock, a Tigers legacy and projected first-round pick in April’s draft, expressed disappointment in the NCAA’s ruling, but noted that it’s not the first time the football program has had to deal with challenges outside of its control.

“It hurt my soul a bit,” Lock said. “If there’s one thing the University of Missouri is good at, it’s dealing with adversity.”