51ºÚÁÏ

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Talking over dinner before Southeastern Conference media days a couple of weeks ago in Atlanta, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz asked Connor Tollison who needed to step up on the defensive side of the ball for the Tigers to find success in 2025.

Tollison, a shrewd observer made even sharper by spending spring practice sidelined while coming back from a torn ACL, was quick with his answer: the cornerbacks.

“And that’s the truth,� Drinkwitz said.

Cornerback is a deep and fairly experienced position for Mizzou heading into this season, but also one that needs to see improvement for the MU defense to reach its potential.

“We return every snap at the corner position from last year,� Drinkwitz said. Drey Norwood played a team-high 593 snaps in 2024, according to PFF. The Tigers got 372 snaps out of Nick Deloach Jr. and 567 out of Toriano Pride Jr. And they added Washington State transfer Stephen Hall, who played 881 there.

The question is whether pitting those four defensive backs against each other will lead to improvement.

The best the Missouri defense looked during the Drinkwitz era was when it had a star tandem of Kris Abrams-Draine and Ennis Rakestraw Jr. as the cornerbacks. But they both went to the NFL after the 2023 season, and Norwood combined with either Pride or Deloach didn’t pack the same kind of punch last season.

Maybe expecting MU to find a pairing like Abrams-Draine and Rakestraw again is too much to ask — but cornerbacks coach Al Pogue thinks it’s possible.

“We were very fortunate in the past to have that with Ennis and KAD,� Pogue told the Post-Dispatch, “but we feel like we have that same potential in the room.�

Norwood is expected to retain his starting role as the team’s primary cornerback, therefore drawing matchups against most opponents’ top wide receivers. In that role last season, he was passable in coverage — enough of a deterrent, anyway, to draw fewer targets than Pride did despite playing more snaps.

Opposing teams threw Norwood’s way 35 times, according to PFF, which led to 22 catches and a 62.9% completion percentage. Norwood forced three incompletions, intercepted two passes and allowed two touchdowns.

(It’s worth noting that PFF’s coverage stats are imperfect, particularly when it comes to assigning responsibility for a play. Coverage breakdowns often involve errors from multiple players and it’s therefore difficult for an algorithm to recognize which player allowed a touchdown to occur, for example. Still, it’s the best publicly available metric, so it’ll have to suffice.)

That was Norwood’s first season as a starting corner, having previously been a fill-in for Abrams-Draine and Rakestraw.

“Drey has always been the model of consistency for us,� Pogue said. “We’ve always known that. Drey’s helped us win a lot of football games. He’s battled some of the top receivers in this league and held his own.�

What’s up for competition, more likely, is the spot opposite Norwood.

Neither Pride nor Deloach was able to command that second cornerback position in their first seasons jockeying for it.

Deloach allowed the highest passer rating of any MU corner, conceding 17 catches on 30 targets, with four forced incompletions and two touchdowns.

Pride faced the most targets of any Missouri cornerback, with 43 throws his way. That led to 24 catches, two touchdowns, five forced incompletions and two interceptions.

The Tigers occasionally swapped them for each other during games, trying to find the most consistent coverage option there.

For Pride, an East 51ºÚÁÏ product who transferred in from Clemson, that wasn’t quite up to par.

“Me being new, that’s not an excuse for anything,� Pride said. “I really shouldn’t start out slow and pick it up later. I need to stay consistent.�

As a response, he put together a much-improved set of spring practices, Drinkwitz said.

Hall’s 2024 season was a bit of an oddball one at Washington State, which played the year as one of two remaining Pac-12 schools, mostly against Mountain West programs. He spent quite a bit of time on the field, racking up 881 snaps.

Opposing teams targeted Hall 67 times, leading to 50 catches, one interception and two touchdowns. Two of his better games came against Texas Tech and Washington, both power conference programs.

While he’s competing against Pride and Deloach for snaps this year, he’s certainly established himself as a contender at Mizzou.

“Stephen Hall, towards the latter part of the spring, started developing confidence in the system and the scheme,� Drinkwitz said. “I don’t think there’s anybody working harder in that corner room than Stephen Hall, and I’ve been very, very impressed with his mentality and work ethic.�

So what’ll be the criteria for determining which corners see the field the most this fall?

“For me and for this team, it’s who’s going to provide that spark?� Pogue said. “Who’s going to be consistent? Who’s going to be productive? Who’s going to be the guy that we can go and say, ‘Hey man, we need you to lock this guy down this week?’�

There’ll be no shortage of talented wideouts to try to lock down. All-SEC receivers Ryan Williams (Alabama), Cam Coleman (Auburn) and Eric Singleton (Auburn) headline the Missouri schedule.

In the next few weeks, Mizzou needs to find a tandem capable of stopping them.

“There’s plenty of guys,� Drinkwitz said. “Coach Pogue’s got to get to coaching.�