Mizzou football opens camp, marking beginning of 2024 season for Missouri Tigers
Missouri Tigers football players moved back into dorms and apartments and gathered Sunday to mark the beginning of the 2024 season with Step 1:
Fall camp.
Coach Eli Drinkwitz has three goals for players in his fifth camp with the Tigers: make it difficult, embrace your role and develop unity. With Mizzou coming off a historic season and returning many productive players on offense, Drinkwitz said there’s no new motto.
The team still has something to prove.
“I think the biggest challenge for us is, in the past, we had to ignore the noise and the naysayers,” Drinkwitz said. “Now, we’ve kind of got to ignore the noise and the praise-givers and focus on just what we need to do, which is try to do the very best we can today and then build on that tomorrow.”
After Missouri was picked to finish sixth in the Southeastern Conference and only wide receiver Luther Burden III was named to an All-SEC team in the presason polls from SEC Media Days, returning defensive tackle Kristian Williams said he feels the Something To Prove motto for the Tigers goes deeper than just proving themselves to others.
“We’ve got a chip on our shoulder,” Williams said. “We want to not only just prove it to the world, but we want to prove it to ourselves first. So that’s coming out here and being present and having that good camaraderie with one another. We’re all in, and we are all we’ve got, so we’re just trying to keep on forging us together.”
There are many questions on who will start this season at various positions. Drinkwitz affirmed that the competition for offensive line and any other position is “wide open” heading into camp.
“We’re not coming in with preconceived ideas,” Drinkwitz said. “Whatever the results of the competition are, (they’re) the results of the competition.”
One looming question is who will start at running back. Former walk-on-turned-star Cody Schrader’s departure for NFL free agency left more than just a position to fill, Drinkwitz said.
“We’ve got to figure out who’s going to carry that flag for our football team,” the coach said, “that on a day to day basis, regardless of the circumstances, regardless how I feel, I’m going to put my needs behind the needs of the team.”
Two candidates for the position Drinkwitz has referred to as thunder and lightning are running backs Marcus Carroll and Nate Noel. Drinkwitz has referenced a running-back-by-committee approach, something offensive coordinator Kirby Moore can see the players doing well.
“(Carroll) does not go down by the first guy,” Moore said. “Sometimes in spring ball, we’re not necessarily going live very often, but in fall camp we’re going to get in some of those settings. I’m excited to see him lower his pads.”
“(Noel) ran outside zone in the past at App State,” Moore added. “He’s a little bit (of a) smaller back, can stretch and get on the perimeter. It’s going to be a combination of how those guys (play) within the different schemes that we’re doing.”
Wide receiver is arguably the deepest position for the Tigers. Their 2024 roster is full of productive players.
Drinkwitz said he challenged wide receivers coach Jacob Peeler to make sure the players are “uncommonly unselfish” this season. Wide receiver Theo Wease Jr. said this will be simple.
“It’s all love, you know. It’s a real brotherhood,” Wease said. “We come to work every day just to compete. We know nobody’s spot is secured. That’s the beauty of it as a receiver, though - you want to compete every day. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Other announcements
After the NCAA approved a rule that would allow an unlimited number of coaches, more assistants can now act in official roles for college teams.
Drinkwitz announced his 2024 coaching staff as he kicked off fall camp. Some notable mentions were that Erik Link will focus on MU’s special teams, Derham Cato will coach tight ends, David Blackwell will coach defensive tackles and Jacob Yoro will coach the safeties.
Drinkwitz also announced that running back Christopher Kreh and defensive back Isaac Thompson will both take medical redshirts this season. He said the two players will serve in coaching-related roles for the team. Kreh will have one year of eligibility remaining after the 2024 season, and Thompson will have two.
The Tigers will practice almost every day until camp concludes Aug. 20 and the season really begins.
Copyright 2024 Columbia Missourian
This story was originally published July 29, 2024 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Mizzou football opens camp, marking beginning of 2024 season for Missouri Tigers."