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COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri outside linebacker Triston Newson is expected return to the team for the 2025 season, using an added year of eligibility granted by a change in NCAA policy.

Newson is among the college players able to play another year after the NCAA in December waived rules around junior college seasons counting toward eligibility following a legal challenge. With his return, Mizzou will retain an experienced defensive starter for 2025.

After weighing his options, MU now expects Newson to be part of the team in 2025, a source familiar with his decision told the Post-Dispatch. PowerMizzou first reported his intent to return.

Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz said ahead of the team’s December Music City Bowl appearance that the decision was entirely up to Newson, who’d previously been on track to conclude his collegiate career in that game.

“We would love to have him back,” Drinkwitz said at the time. “We’d welcome him back with open arms. ... He’s one of us. He’s always welcomed.”

Newson began his career at Northeast Mississippi Community College, where he was a junior college All-American, before transferring to Missouri. In 2023, his first season with the Tigers, Newson emerged as a starter behind injuries to Ty’Ron Hopper. Newson started throughout the 2024 season, recording 71 tackles, one sack and one forced fumble.

Mizzou is also returning Khalil Jacobs at outside linebacker after Jacobs missed slightly more than half of the season with an injury. Young linebackers Nicholas Rodriguez and Jeremiah Beasley — plus incoming transfers Mikai Gbayor and Jeremiah Trotter — round out the position group.

MU’s linebackers will have a new position coach following D.J. Smith’s departure to become the defensive coordinator at Appalachian State. Missouri has hired Derek Nicholson from Miami to take Smith’s post, a source previously told the Post-Dispatch, though his arrival has yet to be announced.

The NCAA’s change in tack regarding eligibility for junior college athletes came in December when Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia — a former junior college player — sued the association. When a federal judge ruled against the NCAA by awarding Pavia an injunction, the NCAA’s board of directors then approved a blanket waiver that grants athletes who “competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years” and ran out of eligibility the ability to compete in the 2025-26 academic year.