‘The best player that nobody’s talking about’: Tyler Badie delivers 254 yards for Mizzou
With 3 minutes, 11 seconds left in the fourth quarter on the road against Vanderbilt, Missouri football was holding on to a slim 30-28 lead.
The Commodores had just scored a touchdown, and the Tigers needed a big play in return if they wanted to pick up their first SEC win of the season.
That’s exactly what Tyler Badie gave them. As he often does.
On first-and-10 at the 25-yard line, the senior running back took the handoff from backup quarterback Tyler Macon and found a hole to his left. Badie sprinted down the sideline past defenders, using his elite speed to run 73 yards to the 2-yard line, setting up Mizzou for its game-winning touchdown in the 37-28 victory.
“I feel like it was definitely important,” Badie said after the game. “In our team meeting before the game, [linebacker] Blaze [Alldredge] talked about taking advantage of the momentum, you know what I mean, winning the momentum battle. I felt like that was the biggest thing I was trying to do, just to end the game and just to win the momentum and be there for my teammates.”
The Mizzou offense has been the Tyler Badie show all season, and that continued Saturday afternoon.
Badie finished with an astonishing career-high 254 yards and two rushing touchdowns. And he did it on just 31 attempts, averaging 8.2 yards per carry.
Badie also recorded eight receptions for 40 yards in the victory.
“I hear a lot of people talk about durability and all this other stuff, and I just want to show everybody that I can run the ball in this league,” Badie said. “Regardless of who we play, I don’t care if it’s SEC, out of conference, if I need to touch the ball 30 times with his team, that’s what I’m gonna do.”
Through eight games, Badie has 989 rushing yards and 11 rushing touchdowns on 157 carries. He also has 305 receiving yards and four receiving touchdowns on 40 catches. No other Mizzou player has that many touchdowns, including quarterback Connor Bazelak.
“I’ve been saying it for a long time, he’s probably the best player that nobody’s talking about,” Missouri head coach Eliah Drinkwitz said. “He’s really the engine that drives us. And he’s just got a big heart, and he’s a competitor and he showed it tonight.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2021 at 7:49 PM.
