When spring football kicks off in about a week and a half or so for Missouri, it will enter with the most momentum it has had in about a decade.

The Tigers finished as the nation’s seventh-best team following an 11-2 season that was capped off with a Cotton Bowl win over Ohio State.

Like every other team in the country, Missouri had some players depart via eligibility, the transfer portal or the NFL Draft. So, it has some transfers coming in, some young players looking to break into the rotation and some incoming freshmen trying to learn the playbook.

There are several storylines heading into spring football practice and the Black & Gold spring football game on March 16, but here, we will highlight the five storylines we think are the most important.

New person. New coaching style. Every coach is a little different.

In Blake Baker’s first year as defensive coordinator he took a different approach that most coordinators wouldn’t do when they first get the job, which is learn the playbook that was already in place instead of having the players learn his new playbook.

It led to great results and turned one of the nation’s worst defenses in 2021 into a top-35 defense in Baker’s first year in 2022. Since, it was his first season the basics of the scheme was kept in place but this past fall, he added some flavor to the scheme and the Tigers remained a top-40 defense.

New defensive coordinator Corey Batoon could take that route. He could learn Baker’s defense and keep it in place to help everyone with the transition.

Or he could implement his system. He runs a similar 4-2-5 scheme that Baker ran. So, it’s plausible.

However, he did run a bit of a 3-3-5 nickel defense at South Alabama. He might want to implement that?

Well, we will find out soon.

Cody Schrader had one of the best individual seasons in Missouri history. He had one of the best stories in college football by going from a walk-on to a Heisman finalist, but his time in Columbia came to an end last season and now the Tigers must replace him.

Well, they don’t have a shortage of options.

The Tigers brought in Georgia State transfer Marcus Carroll, who is almost the same height and weight as Schrader and was also a top 10 leading rusher in college football last season.

They also brought in Nate Noel, formerly of Appalachian State, who has over 3,000 total rushing yards.

Then, the team has redshirt sophomore Tavorus Jones, who has been waiting for an opportunity and Jamal Roberts, a soon-to-be redshirt freshman who the team is excited about.

Add in four-star Kewan Lacy and now the team has five viable running backs it can go to.

Carroll will likely be the first-string back but then after that, it’s open season for RB2.

Missouri has center Connor Tollison back in the fold for what would be his third season as a starter if he maintains the job, which he almost certainly will. Then, they have Cam’Ron Johnson and Armand Membou returning at right guard and right tackle, respectively.

However, it needed to find replacements for All-American left tackle Javon Foster and left guard Xavier Delgado.

The Tigers found a replacement for Foster rather quickly by landing former Oklahoma guard and Lee’s Summit North alum Cayden Green.

Now, all the Tigers have to do is find who will line up to the right of him, and honestly, that’s a more favorable problem than having the left guard and finding who was going to be protecting quarterback Brady Cook’s blindside.

Hutchinson JUCO transfer Jayven Richardson, Tristan Wilson, Logan Reichert and Caleb Pyfrom are candidates who could plug in that left guard role.

Also, the aforementioned swing tackle position is left over from Marcellus Johnson, who ran out of eligibility. He started at times last year and played valuable snaps whenever someone in the starting lineup was unavailable or as a sixth offensive lineman.

A question that this team faced a year ago has returned.

What will the team do at defensive end?

Part of the answer to that question last year was moving Darius Robinson from defensive tackle to EDGE.

The move yielded positive results, with Robinson recording 43 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, eight sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.

He’s off to the NFL now, though.

The man opposite of Robinson was Johnny Walker Jr., and he was the other answer to the question last year.

Walker had a breakout season that saw him rack up 43 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss, five sacks and three forced fumbles.

He will return to the starting lineup, but who will take over Robinson’s old role is to be determined.

Missouri has some intriguing options.

It got Michigan State’s Zion Young and Georgia’s Darris Smith out of the portal.

Last season, Young recorded 26 tackles, 4.5 tackles for losses and 1.5 sacks, while Smith had three tackles and a pass deflection in five games.

There’s Austin Firestone, who came over from Northwestern last offseason.

He was a practice squad guy in fall camp but played his way into nine games and had two tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss.

St. Louis native and former Arizona State Sun Devil Joe Moore Jr. is another option. In his first season with the Tigers last year, he had 13 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, a sack and a fumble recovery in 12 games.

A couple of players the team seemed to be high on last offseason are soon-to-be redshirt freshmen Jahkai Lang and Serigne Tounkara. They could break into the rotation, as well as incoming four-star Elias Williams and three-star Jaylen Brown.

However, the most intriguing option is Williams Nwaneri, the nation’s eighth-ranked player in the class of 2024.

The five-star player won’t be tasked with carrying a huge workload at first but his size and potential warrant some snaps come the fall.

Also, it should be noted that Williams, Brown and Nwaneri aren’t spring enrollees. So, we won’t know exactly where they fit in until the summer.

However, if all the other EDGEs fail to stand out, this position group’s depth will remain a question until fall camp like last year.

There are three defensive end spots to round out the two deep. So, this competition will head into the fall.

The main thing will be who fills what role because the Tigers could have an idea of who their backup EDGEs are in spring ball but still be looking for a starting EDGE come fall camp. In that case, they may be headed to the portal to get one.

Just about every year, a team will have someone step up in spring ball and foreshadow a larger role they deserve come the fall.

Whether it be a practice squad player to a rotational player, a rotational player to a starter, a starter to a star or in wide receiver Luther Burden III’s case, a starter into a superstar.

The seeds for Burden’s monster sophomore year began in spring ball. The same can be said for Robinson, Daylan Carnell and others.

Who will it be this year?

Could Brett Norfleet, who had a very impactful freshman season at tight end, go from a starter to one of the team’s leading pass catchers?

Could Jones or Roberts assert themselves in the running back room and command snaps?

As for newcomers, JUCO transfer Triston Newson was the talk of spring ball a year ago.

He had an interception returned for a touchdown in the spring game and his teammates raved about him being a ball hawk.

His excellent play around this time a year ago took some time to translate, but by the end of the season, Newson was starting in place of the injured Ty’Ron Hopper.

Newson capitalized on his playing time and even won conference Player of the Week honors in Week 13 after recording 15 tackles, two tackles for loss and two fumble recoveries in the 48-14 win over Arkansas.

He’d finish the season with 51 tackles, seven tackles for loss, 0.5 sacks and two fumble recoveries.

Again, it took some time for his spring performance to translate in the games that count, but when it did translate, it translated well, and we saw it coming last March.

So, while a whole season’s worth of expectations shouldn’t come out of spring ball, it’s a telling sign about the direction of the Tigers and what to expect from them down the line.

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