51ºÚÁÏ

Missouri played three quarterbacks in the first half of its season opener, but it wasn’t part of some grand design. Horn came in for a single play, a run up the middle for a gain of six yards. After which, he got to his feet briefly and then crumpled to the turf.

Members of the training staff helped Horn off the field and then back toward the locker room area as Pribula led the team on a third consecutive scoring drive on the way to a 61-6 rout of Central Arkansas at Faurot Field in Memorial Stadium in front of a capacity crowd of 57,321 in the Mizzou season opener.

The night should have served as a public showcase for the quarterback battle, as Pribula and Horn took their competition out in front of the crowd and the cameras. Instead, the battle we were promised ended anticlimactically.

On the other hand, we got answers about whether Pribula had it in him to be more than a gimmick QB, a runner, or a change-of-pace option strictly to be paired with a true passer.

Penn State liked and trusted Pribula enough to find spots to play him, but he was blocked from the starting job by .

Mizzou clearly liked him enough to lure him away from Penn State via the transfer portal, but Pribula didn’t win the starting job outright in camp. Pribula and Horn remained in a stalemate that prompted head coach Eli Drinkwitz to head into the opener with a plan to play both QBs and continue the evaluation process.

Well, Pribula showed he can play quarterback and pass the ball at a high level for a Power 4 football program. He proved that he’s capable of leading them on the field in game action.

“I think the build-up of this week, you know, it’s something I’ve been waiting for for a long time — just an opportunity like this,� Pribula said. “I was just extremely excited. I was a little jittery in the hotel. But once I got to the stadium, I was really excited just to get out here and play with these guys.�

Yes, the opponent was Central Arkansas from the United Athletic Conference. Nobody will confuse them with an SEC power like Alabama, South Carolina, Auburn or Oklahoma. And you can bet there’s a going to be a big difference between Central Arkansas and next week’s “Border War� rival Kansas.

All of that can absolutely be true, and it’s also true that Pribula needed a performance to cement himself a starting-caliber passer, stamp his imprint on this offense and start to shape an identity for this team.

Pribula played most of the first three quarters of the game with the exception of the Horn run and a one-play cameo by freshman signal-caller Matt Zollers after Pribula’s helmet came off at the end of a fourth down run to pick up a first down in the second quarter. Zollers took over for good in the final two minutes of the third quarter.

Pribula went 23 of 28 passing for 283 yards with two touchdown passes and another 65 yards rushing on 10 carries and two more touchdowns on the ground. His first pass went for 49 yards and a touchdown to Marquis Johnson, one of eight receivers he connected with on a night when he completed 82% of his throws.

“Taking care of the football, efficient drives, doing my job, taking what the defense gives you — I thought I did a pretty good job of that today,� Pribula said.

Johnson and Pribula linked up on a pair of deep passes, including a 44-yard throw in the third quarter. Johnson described both passes as “amazing.�

“Beau played well tonight,� Johnson said. “He played like we expect him to play. He do it every day in practice.�

Pribula showed he was in control of the offense. He threw accurately and with good timing and rhythm. He made a couple plays outside of the pocket. He led the offense on a 99-yard touchdown drive with 3:38 remaining in the first half. He didn’t commit a turnover, and he didn’t leave any throws up for grabs in a way that made you think he got away with something.

If we’re getting nitpicky, he got a little bit of happy feet in what looked like a solid pocket on his 31-yard scramble touchdown. Of course, he still showed the athleticism to turn that play into a highlight.

Pribula also threw a pass high that left tight end Brett Norfleet exposed for a shot to the ribs that left Norfleet temporarily hunched over on the turf. They also appeared to rush to snap the ball on a play late in the first half that resulted in a false start penalty.

Overall, Pribula played with poise even in the face of a couple pass protection breakdowns in front of him. He provided the type of spark Drinkwitz said he needed from his starting quarterback, and he did it with both emotional displays of body language and big plays.

“I was pleased. I knew he prepared well in fall camp,� Drinkwitz said of Pribula. “I tried to tell everybody that we had two quarterbacks that could win football games. I fully expected that to be the case.

“I thought he played, honestly, pretty well. I thought Sam played pretty well too. I thought (Pribula’s) ability to extend plays — I thought that big-time run was pretty headsy there. His ability to pull the ball on some zone read stuff was nice, but he threw the ball really well too.�

With Horn’s injury and uncertain status, it was even more important that Pribula had the type of all-around performance he did. After all, imagine how different the vibe could have been if Horn went down and Pribula struggled against Central Arkansas.

And there was also a real damper on the postgame mood.

Pribula all but locked up MU’s starting quarterback job, in part through his play but mostly because Sam Horn, with whom he was supposed to split time during the final stage of their quarterback competition, suffered a significant leg injury during the first half.

Starting placekicker Blake Craig was also injured, and the possibility of him missing time would greatly affect the Tigers’ special teams operations.

“Those two things are really disappointing,� Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “We’ll see (Friday) what the extent of those injuries is.

Horn was hurt on a first-half rushing attempt. Despite being scheduled to quarterback the Mizzou offense during the second half, he checked in for a wildcat-style play, picking up six yards on what Drinkwitz called “a heck of a run.�

After the play, Horn was helped to the locker room, later spotted on crutches with a full leg brace and ruled out in the third quarter. It’s a particularly brutal occurrence for a two-sport athlete who has signed a professional contract to pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers and who had only just returned from a year away recovering from Tommy John surgery.

“(Horn) was voted captain because his teammates care about him,� Drinkwitz said. "You hurt for the young man because last year was taken away from him for a different reason. This year, he’s going to have to face another injury, and don’t know how long it’ll be. There’s something that wears you down mentally in those things. Can’t second-guess it. You just gotta face it every day, and we’ll face it with him.�

Craig’s injury came when he was hit on a kickoff, and he was also helped to the locker room. True freshman Robert Meyer kicked extra points in his absence.

Those injuries loomed large over what was otherwise a solid team-wide showing from Mizzou.

Pribula, known more for his rushing ability than his arm, uncorked a 49-yard touchdown to wide receiver Marquis Johnson on his first pass of the game. The Penn State transfer put his legs to work, too, on a 31-yard scramble into the end zone in the second quarter, then led two 99-yard scoring drives.

Pribula finished 23-for-28 with 283 passing yards, two passing touchdowns, 72 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. Even under pressure at times, he looked fluid in escaping the pocket, powerful as a runner and crisp when distributing the ball.

“I knew he prepared well in fall camp,� Drinkwitz said. “I tried to tell everybody that we had two quarterbacks who could win football games. And I fully expected that to be the case.�

Johnson finished with five catches for a career-high 134 yards and one touchdown. Slot receiver Kevin Coleman Jr. led the Tigers with six catches.

While the starters were playing, Mizzou’s backfield wound up a split between Hardy and Jamal Roberts. Hardy was more productive, taking his 10 carries for 100 yards and a touchdown — a stat line boosted by one 44-yard run he broke loose up the seam.

Roberts finished with eight rushes for 33 yards, a tally that would’ve been higher if a 31-yard rush of his hadn’t been wiped off the board due to a holding penalty. As has become the norm for him, the St. Mary’s product came in clutch with some pass protection to save Pribula from a couple more hits than he took.

And while 230 rushing yards spread across the team is hardly an amount to scoff at, the Tigers’ ground game didn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders yet. Some of that — maybe even most of it — came down to a new-look offensive line that had a middling day.

Only one lineman — center Connor Tollison — started in the same position he played last season. Cayden Green slid over to left guard, which proved to be an adjustment. He and new left guard Dominick Giudice let a couple of unblocked pass rushers through in the first half, and that tandem limited the effectiveness of MU’s beloved outside zone runs.

“For whatever reason, we weren’t really able to get the back side sealed off on our outside zones the way we normally do,� Drinkwitz said. “So that’s got to be a point of emphasis moving forward to create the running lanes we want.�

Given that the starting five along the offensive line emerged late in camp and hadn’t played together in a game until today, perhaps that was to be expected.

“There was some good, bad and some things in between,� Drinkwitz said of the line play. “First couple of drives, we were getting to the second level but we weren’t finishing those blocks. I think there was a couple of mistakes that are from, hey, learning to play new positions and figuring out that unit together. But overall I was pretty pleased.�

Missouri’s next game will come against a tougher opponent and with much higher stakes: The Border War rivalry with Kansas (1-0) resumes at 2:30 p.m. Sept. 6 in Columbia.

Several receivers illustrated they are ready for prime time.

Here's a look at five key plays from Thursday's game:

Beau can throw

Time: 11:06, first quarter

Play: 49-yard touchdown from Pribula to Marquis Johnson

On his first pass attempt in a Mizzou uniform, quarterback Pribula found wide receiver Marquis Johnson open in stride at the 8-yard line. Johnson ran it the rest of the way to complete a 49-yard touchdown, opening the scoring quickly on Mizzou’s fourth play from scrimmage.

The pass quickly quieted question marks about Pribula’s downfield passing ability. As Mizzou beat writer Eli Hoff noted, Pribula attempted just 56 passes at Penn State, only 18 of which went to targets 10 or more yards downfield.

Pribula rushed for 7 yards on the play before that long pass.

Coleman shows punt-return prowess

Time: 7:41, second quarter

Play: Kevin Coleman Jr. returns a punt 44 yards

One of the better punt returners in the Southeastern Conference last year at Mississippi State, Kevin Coleman Jr. quickly showed fans in his home state why.

Coleman, a 51ºÚÁÏ native who attended St. Mary’s, ran one back a career-best 44 yards to the Central Arkansas 33-yard line, setting up the next key play.

Coleman’s arrival is key given Mizzou's punt return woes. He racked up more punt return yards (50) Thursday than Mizzou did all of last season (27).

Pribula dekes, dazzles on 31-yard score

Time: 6:48, second quarter

Play: Pribula runs for a 31-yard touchdown

On the second play after Coleman’s big return, Pribula demonstrated the rushing ability for which he's known best. His 31-yard rush score was far more impressive — and far longer — than the box score may have indicated.

Pribula dropped back to pass, swerved around a Central Arkansas defensive lineman 14 yards behind the line of scrimmage and rushed forward, avoiding several more Bears defenders before tumbling into the corner of the end zone for a touchdown.

Norfleet’s catch caps 99-yard drive before half

Time: 0:08, second quarter

Play: Pribula 1-yard touchdown pass to Brett Norfleet

Mizzou avoided what would've been a minor letdown when Pribula found tight end Norfleet at the back of the end zone to complete a 99-yard touchdown drive just before halftime and send the Tigers into the locker room up 26-0.

Mizzou wants to involve its tight ends more, as the Post-Dispatch's Hoff wrote, and it did so Thursday.

The drive as a whole was a team effort. Jamal Roberts started it with a 31-yard run. Joshua Manning caught three straight passes for a total of 42 yards and, thanks to his efforts, Pribula finished the half with career highs in completions (19), attempts (23) and passing touchdowns (two).

It was Mizzou’s first 99-yard touchdown drive since 2021 — and that was just the Tigers' first 99-yard TD drive of the night.

Hardy gallops to first touchdown

Time: 11:23, third quarter

Play: Ahmad Hardy 4-yard touchdown run

The Tigers expect a lot from Louisiana-Monroe transfer Ahmad Hardy, and he showed a lot on the first drive of the second half.

Hardy rushed for 59 yards on the half's opening drive, including a 44-yard dash on a pitch from Pribula. Hardy capped it with a 4-yard score, then the equestrian celebrated with teammates with a giddy-up dance in a nod to his horses.

Honorable mention

Blake Craig's long field goals

Sophomore kicker Blake Craig continues to make long field goals. His two attempts came from 49 and 55 yards. He hit both.

Craig later left the game with an injury suffered on a kickoff.

Dante McClellan's 83-yard interception return TD

If you tuned out early, you missed freshman linebacker Dante McClellan's 83-yard interception return for a touchdown with 2:48 to play.

After just 17 wins in Eli Drinkwitz’s first four years in Columbia, MU won 11 games in Year 4, then 10 in Year 5. At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Year 6 kicks off against Central Arkansas (TV: SEC Network; radio: 550-AM KTRS, locally) with a broad question for Drinkwitz and his program:

Can Missouri stay on this track?

Doing so, in terms of Mizzou history, would look like parallel parking a train. Never before have the Tigers assembled three consecutive 10-win seasons, which means Drinkwitz will need to unlock a new kind of maneuverability to keep MU in the top half of an ultra-competitive Southeastern Conference.

“We want to do something that’s never been done before at the University of Missouri,� Drinkwitz said earlier this year, “and that’s win an SEC championship, participate in the playoff and/or be the first team in school history to have three 10-win seasons in a row. That’s a challenge. It’s going to be hard, but we embrace it.�

Meeting the challenge is a roster that looks quite different from the teams that combined for 21 wins across the 2023 and 2024 campaigns. Gone are core players like Brady Cook, Luther Burden III, Theo Wease Jr. and Johnny Walker Jr.

In their stead, the Tigers will have a new starting quarterback, with Thursday’s opener set to decide whether Penn State transfer Beau Pribula or returning two-sport athlete Sam Horn earns the QB1 mantle. Pribula entered camp as the favorite to win the job and is expected, per an ESPN report, to play the entire first half against Central Arkansas, which more or less makes the starting gig his to lose.

Kevin Coleman Jr., once a St. Mary’s star, will be MU’s No. 3-adorned slot receiver, having transferred in from Mississippi State. At the risk of overdoing locomotive metaphors, the hype train for new tailback Ahmad Hardy left the station months ago. Damon Wilson II, the highest-ranked edge rusher available during the offseason transfer portal cycle, arrived from Georgia to anchor the Tigers’ best position group.

The list of promising newcomers could continue. Starting middle linebacker Josiah Trotter was a freshman All-American at West Virginia. Starting safety Jalen Catalon was once an All-SEC defensive back at Arkansas. Starting left guard Dominick Giudice has already earned the title of “glue of the offensive line.�

And that leaves off returners like Cayden Green, a preseason All-American — albeit at left guard, not where he’ll start the season, which is at left tackle. And tight end Brett Norfleet, who is finally healthy and prepared for a bigger role in the offense. And wideouts like Marquis Johnson and Joshua Manning, who enter their third seasons with much higher expectations than before.

“This is the deepest team we’ve had,� Drinkwitz said.

Depth, however, is not without questions.

Letting the quarterback competition — to whatever degree it still is one — linger into the season naturally breeds some uncertainty. As Drinkwitz has pointed out, that structure turned out well in 2023. But it didn’t exactly produce immediate confidence in Cook, so repeatability is not guaranteed.

The Tigers reshuffled their offensive line late in fall camp, including the aforementioned shift of Green from his preferred left guard spot out to left tackle. The O-line tweaks put fourth-year lineman Curtis Peagler, who has just 36 career snaps, in position to start at right guard.

And on special teams, MU will need kicker Blake Craig to turn a big leg into more consistency from intermediate range, plus a punter who was benched at Stanford during the 2023 season and hasn’t punted since to find his form.

Little to none of that should be an issue against a Central Arkansas team that Mizzou is favored to beat by more than five touchdowns. But Kansas, looming on the horizon as the Tigers’ Week 2 opponent, will be a stiffer test. And this broader uncertainty is what kept Missouri out of preseason top 25 lists despite the success of the past two seasons.

Backing the notion that MU could stay in 10-win territory — and by doing so, push for a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff — is the SEC’s most favorable schedule.

Aside from the Border War matchup with KU, the Tigers have three other highly winnable nonconference games: Central Arkansas, Louisiana and UMass, all at home. The three teams Mizzou lost to last season — Texas A&M, Alabama and South Carolina — come to Columbia this time, which means no hostile six-figure crowds against the first two teams on that list.

Missouri’s most difficult matchups will be at Auburn and at Oklahoma, two games that narrowly went MU’s way on home soil. Continuing to win so many one-score games, the fickle contests in which Mizzou is 10-1 over the past two years, adds to the sustainability challenge.

But ranked or not, the Tigers’ 2025 season will begin with optimism and an edge: that what Missouri has shown over the past two seasons is not just set to continue but set to become the standard under Drinkwitz.

Fans seem to be on board. Thursday will be the 13th consecutive sellout of Memorial Stadium, a streak guaranteed to reach at least 15 because Mizzou’s second and third home games of the season have already sold out.

For the second straight year, MU sold its entire allotment of season tickets, which is more than 40,000, including student tickets. That came despite an increase in season ticket prices for 2025, which shows the demand to see the football program coming alive in Columbia.

“(We’ve) been asking a lot of our people,� athletics director Laird Veatch said, “... and they have responded, which we are obviously very appreciative of. It really shows that they believe in what we’re trying to accomplish together.�

Drinkwitz has done excellent work recruiting the prep scene and the transfer portal. He inspired impressive financial support for name, image and likeness deals that allowed the Tigers to keep pace in the cutthroat Southeastern Conference.

He has maintained strong coaching and support staffing. He learned to delegate key duties so he could improve as a game coach.

After finding agonizing ways to lose close games earlier in Drinkwitz’s tenure — like in 2022 at Auburn, at Florida and at home to Kentucky — the Tigers found ways to win in the margins during the past two seasons.

In 2023, Missouri finished 11-2 after delivering narrow escapes against Middle Tennessee, Kansas State and Florida.

Last season, the Tigers played seven one-score games and won six of them while finishing 10-3. Even their most painful loss, 34-30 at South Carolina, featured a stirring late charge.

Ah, but the coaching challenges just keep coming.

The Tigers are still viewed as a second-tier SEC program. Media types placed Missouri 12th in the conference in their preseason poll. The national preseason poll by coaches ranked the Tigers as the 11th-best team in the league.

Their 2025 schedule sets up nicely with six straight home games offering them a long runway for takeoff. But Kansas, South Carolina and Alabama will offer stern tests during the first half of the schedule, then the Tigers open the second half at upstart Vanderbilt.

Does Missouri have another 11-2 or 10-3 team this season — or will it become another 7-6 or 6-7 squad like so many others over the decades?

Missouri will start providing answers when it hosts Central Arkansas on Thursday night in their tuneup opener at Memorial Stadium.

The first order of business will be to pick the starting quarterback. Drinkwitz will play both Beau Pribula, the presumed favorite, and Sam Horn before selecting the competition winner before the Jayhawks come to town on Sept. 6.

Neither quarterback has extensive game experience, so both will benefit from seeing the live action. Even against a physically overmatched FCS opponent, these repetitions will be important.

While Drinkwitz and Co. learned a lot about his rebuilt roster during summer camp, the coaching staff will discover much more about every position once the games start.

Then there is the broader matter of team mindset. Drinkwitz has worked hard to establish a winning culture, but the wholesale roster churn in modern college football has made that difficult to maintain from season to season.

“Really important for us this week as a football team to establish and bring our identity to life,� Drinkwitz noted in his Saturday media availability. “We want to be a tough football team and a team that plays under pressure and executes in tough moments. That’s going to be really important for us. That was our message to the team this week, make our identity come to life.

“You get one shot to make a first impression. What impression are we going to have?�

In 2021, Central Michigan hung tough against Missouri in the season opener at Columbia. That foreshadowed trouble to come: another agonizing loss at Kentucky, underwhelming home victories against SEMO and North Texas, and a painful overtime loss at Boston College.

In 2022, the Tigers yielded 336 passing yards to Louisiana Tech in their opener, then they committed nine penalties for 85 yards against Abilene Christian in another “buy� game on Faurot Field. Those mediocre efforts set the stage for the excruciating losses to come.

Last season, the Tigers established their identity early on while dispatching Murray State and Buffalo by the combined score of 89-0. With incumbent standouts Brady Cook and Luther Burden III leading the offense, they knew a lot about themselves heading into the season.

The Tigers are less certain this year. Drinkwitz rounded up proven talent in the transfer portal for this season, but will the new players mesh in the line of fire?

This opener will be easy for the Tigers unless they make it hard. They will operate with a thin scouting report on Central Arkansas and face a team jacked up to play on a big stage.

Yet Missouri will win easily if it takes the assignment seriously. The Tigers must execute cleanly in all facets of the game and prepare for the dangerous Jayhawks.

“There’s a lot of things to figure out,� Drinkwitz said. “I think we know going into it what we want to try to establish. Everybody goes in with a plan. You have to react to different things that occur. We’ll see.�

In many ways, Drinkwitz starts all over again Thursday night.

For the first time in his five seasons with the Tigers, Muckey was about to take questions from reporters, as every team captain did before the Tigers begin their 2025 season Thursday against Central Arkansas. Representing his team like this, in itself, was an improbability.

As a kid, he’d once been so nervous that he threw up on the walk to his first day of preschool, then again on the first day of kindergarten. Now, he seemed self-assured, even as questions turned increasingly personal.

How could they not? His story is one of a walk-on turned team captain, of someone who’s living out his dream by playing college football for the school he decided to attend in second grade.

“Every time I step out on the field wearing Mizzou across my chest, it’s worth it,� Muckey said.

By “it,� he means a lot.

A bet on himself despite the long odds walk-ons face.

A four-year wait for his first collegiate catch.

And cancer, which he survived earlier this year.

Muckey arrived for his first news conference in the standard player garb: a team-issued charcoal-gray polo shirt, “Missouri football� stitched in gold letters on the left side. Two silver necklaces showed underneath the collar. A few inches above, a scar.

His offseason looked different from the rest of his teammates. Muckey came back from spring break to find out, in what was ultimately a stroke of good luck, that he had papillary thyroid cancer.

In May, doctors removed the mass on his thyroid. He’s been cancer-free since. Save for 10 days of medically mandated rest, he hasn’t taken a break from football. He didn’t even want anyone to know about the cancer at first.

“He recognized that there are people out there that have it a lot worse than him,� Logan’s dad, Darren Muckey, said. “He just felt like they’re the ones that deserve the thoughts and prayers.�

Because here’s the thing about Logan Muckey: He’s happy. Couldn’t be happier, really. For a 23-year-old who went to the doctor with a sore throat only to find out there was a tumor on his thyroid — and maybe because that’s part of who he is now — he’s incredibly content with where he is.

“He’s exactly where he wants to be,� Darren said. “You couldn’t get Logan out of Columbia, Missouri, with the jaws of life.�

At no point, however, was there a guarantee he’d get there. Or that it would wind up like this, with Logan a survivor and a captain.

‘Dad, we did it’

Coming out of Lee’s Summit North High School in the Kansas City area after three all-conference seasons with the Broncos, Logan had a decision to make.

At that point, two things about him were true:

First, he was a good wide receiver. This dated back to when he started playing in second grade and was the first player to figure out how to catch the ball over his shoulder. If he could get behind the defense — and if an 8- or 9-year-old quarterback could get the ball there — he was gone.

“It was a weapon on second-grade football,� Darren said, half-joking, half-serious.

Logan started for Lee’s Summit North as a sophomore. He finished his career there with 88 catches for 1,049 yards and nine touchdowns.

Second, Logan wanted to play for Missouri.

He’d grown up loving the Tigers and shying away from Kansas, even though Lawrence was right there on the other side of the metro area. Once, when he was at a youth basketball camp, some KU players showed up to hand out posters and souvenir basketballs and signed autographs.

Logan left empty-handed because he wanted nothing to do with them.

The highlight of one of his birthday parties was Corbin Berkstresser, who was mostly a third-string quarterback at Mizzou from 2011 to 2015, making an appearance.

On the table, from relatively new MU coach Eli Drinkwitz, was a chance to be a preferred walk-on for the Tigers. A spot, but not a scholarship, which was good enough for Logan.

His mind sounded made up, but his parents wanted him to be sure he knew what walking on meant.

“We had a conversation,� Kristy Muckey, Logan's mother, said. “‘Is this the best choice? It’s hard. It’s the SEC. You’re going to have to work really hard.’ He said to us that if he didn’t, he would wonder for the rest of his life if he could do it.�

So off Logan went to Columbia, to find out if he could make a college football team.

He played 15 snaps across two games as a true freshman during the 2021 season, preserving his redshirt. His second year, however, went differently.

Logan played in every game of the 2022 season, racking up 205 snaps on special teams. And then came the news from Drinkwitz: Logan was a walk-on no more and had been awarded a scholarship.

He called Kristy to share the news. As a middle school teacher, she was in class with a room full of eighth graders.

“I answer it in the middle of class,� she said. “He’s crying. I can’t understand him.�

Then Logan called his dad.

“He says, ‘Dad, we did it,’� Darren said. “And I lost it at work.�

Logan was a special teams staple again in 2023 and 2024, racking up more than 100 snaps in each of those seasons but no catches for a by-then veteran receiver.

That changed in the Music City Bowl at the tail end of last season. In that game against Iowa — the school Darren grew up cheering for, coincidentally — the Tigers needed more than their usual cadre of wideouts. Mookie Cooper’s season had ended weeks earlier due to injury. Luther Burden III was done with college ball and getting ready for the NFL draft. Theo Wease Jr. broke his hand in the first half.

Logan was about to make himself useful and did so with a 6-yard catch that eventually set up an MU touchdown.

Inside Nashville’s Nissan Stadium, Darren was in awe of what he was seeing.

“I just about fainted,� he said. “It was an extremely proud moment. All my friends are chucking me on the shoulder: ‘That was your boy, that was your boy!’ I’m trying to compose myself — don’t want to be that dad — but inside, I’m just bursting.�

As the calendar turned to 2025 and parts of the Missouri roster turned over, Logan’s role in the wide receiver room changed. He became the longest-tenured wideout, one of just four players still around from the 2021 season.

Fellow wideout Marquis Johnson — two years Logan’s junior — affectionately called him an “old head.�

“Muck’s the oldest, and we just respect him on all terms,� Johnson said. “We respect everything he does; we respect the work he puts in. Logan has done something that I’ve never seen no one else do. His toughness and the way he goes about his business, we all respect him.�

An abscess to thank

Earlier this year, Logan woke up on a Monday morning with a sore throat. He’d been fine the week before, when he spent spring break back home in Lee’s Summit. He texted Kristy that he was going to see the Mizzou training staff to get checked out.

She assumed it was probably strep. Antibiotics, Popsicles, solved. Then she got a call from the trainers that they were taking Logan in for a CT scan.

The scan wasn’t even intended to look for cancer. Logan had an abscess — a gnarly infection — on one of his tonsils, which required a scan to image before it could be drained.

The trainer called back again. In addition to the abscess, there was something on Logan’s thyroid. A mass. It would need to be biopsied.

From the biopsy came a number: an 80% chance that the tumor on Logan’s thyroid was cancerous.

“Nothing that I could have ever expected,� Logan said. “It was something that shocked me, something that I had to come to terms with, like, OK, this is real. This is real life. What do we do now?�

He needed surgery to have it removed. His parents and Zach Parker, MU’s director of football sports medicine, tried to keep him calm because there was a plan and a good prognosis following surgeries like this.

Still, Logan “was in the mental meat-grinder of concern,� Darren said. “... Any time you say the word cancer, it carries a certain level of concern.�

Surgeons removed the mass late in May. Logan wasn’t allowed to exercise for 10 days, which was the part he hated the most. Post-op tests confirmed it was papillary thyroid cancer, which is most common in middle-aged adults. There usually aren’t symptoms. Spotting the tumor on a CT scan meant for his tonsil was pure coincidence, pure miracle.

“We thank the abscess a lot,� Kristy said.

‘A blessing in disguise’

Walking on to a football team and surviving cancer are not the same thing, yet both have a way of working themselves into identities. Logan is a walk-on and a survivor. He worked his way into a scholarship spot on the Missouri roster and lucked, perhaps, his way into having his cancer caught before it was worse.

“Everything that Logan does in his life, he sees it as a part of him,� Darren said. “It’s who he is. He’s proud of who he is, what he does.�

The walk-on part of him is grounded by the grind of scout-team reps, of waiting four years for his first catch, of betting on his ability to win over coaches to earn a roster spot.

“Being a walk-on, the odds are stacked against you,� Logan said. “It’s an uphill battle. But the guys here fight that battle with you. I’m not walking alone.�

He could, and does, say the same about having cancer. He thanked his parents, Parker and the Mizzou training staff, Tigers coaches, and MU’s Ellis Fischel Cancer Center.

“I realized a lot about myself,� Logan said. “I learned a lot of lessons in life. I’m not taking anything for granted ever again because anything you have can be taken away from you just like that.�

He snapped his fingers for effect.

“It’s crazy to say, but it’s a blessing in disguise,� he said.

Now, Logan is a team captain, voted to represent Mizzou’s special teams units by his teammates. The honor means a little more to a player whose path to this point was paved with unknowns and disrupted by a scare.

“When I walked on back in 2021, I knew that it was going to be gritty,� Logan said. “I knew that it was going to take a lot of hard work. So being in this situation now, I mean, words will never be able to describe it. It’s awesome.�

The Junior Billikens faced a long walk to their locker room following a disastrous first half in last year's Class 6 District 3 semifinal contest at Ritenour.

Harris felt it was necessary to cancel the journey.

"He didn't want everybody to be dragging their heads and being down and depressed any further," SLUH coach Adam Cruz recalled. "So he asked me if we could just huddle on a baseball field nearby."

Cruz was somewhat surprised by the strange request.

But he relented.

Harris had a solid reason for the move.

And it wasn't fatigue.

"We didn't need any more moping," Harris said. "Walking all the way to the locker room was only going to make matters worse. What we needed was to get together and talk as soon as possible."

Cruz and Harris both spoke about their disappointment in their team's first-half effort, which put the Junior Billikens into a three-possession hole.

"In my mind, I knew we had to go to the nearest corner and get our minds right," Harris said. "That was the only way we were going to get back into the game."

The ploy worked.

SLUH went out scored four times in a span of 13 minutes to record the biggest comeback in the long history of the program, which began in 1916.

The Junior Bills rallied for an eye-popping 43-40 win after trailing by 20 points early in the second half.

"He figured by the time the guys got back up (to the locker room), some of them already would have checked out," Cruz said. "They'd start feeling bad for themselves."

Added Harris, who had 12 tackles in the contest, "We just had to chill and get our act together."

The 6-foot-1-inch 220-pound linebacker, safety and wide receiver is the unquestioned leader of this veteran group.

Harris will be taking his talents to the University of Missouri, where he is expected to play linebacker. He selected the Tigers over 38 NCAA Division I schools clamoring for his services.

"They were the first school to offer me (a scholarship), and that was big for me," Harris said. "They were with me through the whole process and I've got a great, strong bond with all the coaches."

The No. 2 recruit on the Post-Dispatch Super 30 countdown of the area’s top senior college football prospects, Harris is also a pass-catching wizard and has been one of the Junior Bills' few two-way players over the last three seasons.

Known for his speed and uncanny ability to recognize where the opposition is going with a play, Harris has had a hand in 315 tackles with 41 for losses in his career. Teams gear their offense to run as far away from Harris as possible, yet he still posts impressive numbers. He always seems to come up huge in the biggest games and recorded a season-high 13 tackles in a loss to Metro Catholic champion CBC in 2024.

Harris also caught 23 passes for 328 yards and three touchdowns last season.

"We knew from the day he walked on campus that we had a pretty special player," Cruz said. "He's one of the most competitive kids I've ever met. Even in practice, he goes 120 percent in everything we do."

Harris credits a good majority of his success to his mother, Keena. 

Cruz recalls one of the rare times that he had to bark at Harris for something that happened in practice. A few hours later, Cruz got a call from Keena.

"I thought maybe I was in trouble for being too hard on him," Cruz said. "Instead, she told me I did the right thing and if he ever gave me any trouble again to call her and she would take of him for me."

Keena, who works for the AFL-CIO, raised Keenan with an iron fist.

"Now is the time for me to teach him that you can't do things like that with adults," Keena said. "You learn how to move on with life and don't do something like that again."

Keenan can play both safety and linebacker and could fit in at a hybrid-type position at Mizzou, which encompasses the skill sets of both positions.

Harris is also a basketball standout. He led the Junior Bills in scoring (13 points) and rebounding (8) last season.

But football has always been his first love.

Cruz said Harris has plenty of upside and feels he can only get better and better.

"There are days when there's just no stopping him," Cruz said. "Hopefully, we've got a lot of those coming up."

Jeremiah Jr., himself a two-time All-American at Clemson, is fresh off winning the Super Bowl in his rookie season, also with the Eagles.

And then there’s Josiah Trotter, Missouri’s new starting middle linebacker and the relative up-and-comer of his family.

He was a freshman All-American and the Big 12’s defensive freshman of the year in 2024 after posting 92 tackles and four tackles for a loss at West Virginia. Those are the kind of numbers that earn starting roles on Southeastern Conference defenses.

But in the Trotter household, that’s just the baseline. Jeremiah Sr. finished his college career with 300 tackles. Jeremiah Jr. left Clemson with 202, 29 1/2 of which were for a loss.

So Josiah is just getting started.

“I think we’re bred and pretty much born to play linebacker at this point,� he said, “from mentality and a physical standpoint.�

Trotter, wearing the same No. 40 jersey for Mizzou that his dad did at SFA, stepped into one of the Tigers’ deepest position groups and quickly grabbed hold of the open middle linebacker spot.

From that number choice to his 6-foot-2, 237-pound frame, Trotter is the unmissable newcomer at the heart of MU’s defense, in a way that can be seen and felt.

“Trotter is a hitter, man,� starting center Connor Tollison said. “He’s got some weight on.�

And in a way that can be heard, apparently.

“It’s kind of hard not to see him because he’s always growling after he makes a play,� fellow linebacker Khalil Jacobs said. “It’s kind of weird, but he’s hungry.�

Trotter laughed off his guttural celebrations.

“Maybe a growl, maybe a yell,� he called them.

If he plays at Missouri like he did at West Virginia, any sideways looks will go away quickly.

Trotter spent two years with the Mountaineers, signing out of St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia as a three-star recruit. He was injured for his first season but broke out while starting in his second.

Playing in the middle of the West Virginia defense, Trotter became a do-everything player. He made 12 tackles in two separate games and pulled down an interception against Oklahoma State. He broke up another pass against Penn State, though it wasn’t against current MU quarterback Beau Pribula.

Yet finishing 6-7 overall and 5-4 in Big 12 play wasn’t what the WVU athletics department was looking for, and the school fired coach Neal Brown on Dec. 1.

Brown’s dismissal presented Trotter with the question floated in a well-known 1982 song by English punk-rock band The Clash: Should I stay or should I go?

“As things went along, you hear a little bit of chatter, whether or not your head coach or staff will be there,� Trotter said. “And then when everything broke out (and) the head coach got fired, kind of had to open up my options.

“But at the same time, I was still looking to stay at West Virginia — give West Virginia a chance to see who they brought in and what the situation would be like for me if I did stay. We broke it down and talked about it and figured I’d hit the transfer portal, see my options and go from there.�

He had quite a few options. Washington and Mizzou brought him in for a visit. Florida State and Penn State were also interested, per 247Sports at the time.

Then a connection to Stephen F. Austin that predates Josiah came into play.

Jeremiah spent the 1995, 1996 and 1997 seasons there as a player. Just starting his coaching career as a graduate assistant and analyst at that time was Curtis Luper, who’s now the Mizzou running backs coach.

It had been a little while, but the trust was there. Josiah was headed to Columbia.

He’ll need to adjust to tackling SEC players and operating within the structure of a new defense, but preseason signs have been positive.

That keeps Trotter on track to continue following in his brother’s and dad’s linebacking footsteps, choosing to appreciate rather than resent the notion that he could be in their shadows.

“I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder to outwork everybody around me but also try to be better than what my dad and my brother were — and always embrace it,� Trotter said. “They always help me along the way, coaching me on little things, whatever it may be. But I just embrace it. What else can you do besides embrace it?�