Chances are there will be times during this Missouri football season when third-year Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz wishes he could call a play for departed running back Tyler Badie.
Badie could run. Badie could catch. Badie could come very close to completely carrying an SEC team on his back.
The former Tigers captain carried the ball 268 times for a single-season program record 1,604 yards in 2021. He caught a team-high 54 passes for 330 yards. He scored a team-high 18 touchdowns, 14 on the ground and fourth through the air. Without Badie, Mizzou doesn’t get to six wins in Drinkwitz’s second season. Without Badie, Drinkwitz would be feeling a lot more pressure entering this third.