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Missouri football has been busy.
The Tigers have added 17 players via the transfer portal since it opened in December, and the Tigers are set to lose 16 players the other way. Of the 17 newcomers, nine have come on the defensive side of the ball.
Mizzou entered the portal with multiple positions of need, mostly due to players exhausting their eligibility or declaring for the 2025 NFL Draft. The Tribune is handing out grades for how the Tigers fared at filling those open roles.
More: Missouri football live transfer portal news: Tracking who joins, leaves Mizzou in portal
Here’s our criteria: Do they plug an instant need for the Tigers in 2025? Do they set Mizzou up for success beyond next season? Were they among the top available players at their position?
Here are our grades for Missouri’s transfer portal work at each position on defense:
Defensive end: B
Transfers in: Damon Wilson II (Georgia); Nate Johnson (Appalachian State); Langden Kitchen (Northwest Missouri State)
Transfers out: Jaylen Brown (South Carolina); Williams Nwaneri (Nebraska)
Missouri’s additions at defensive end? Excellent.
Wilson is ranked as the No. 5 player to enter the transfer portal in this cycle by 247Sports, and Johnson was a freshman All-American at Appalachian State. Those two players appear like instant fits for the rotation off the edge.
The losses? Concerning.
Nwaneri was one of Missouri’s most high-profile high school recruits in team history. If anything, Brown appeared to be the more college-ready of the two players, finding a way to get some reserve minutes in 2024 and looking like an exciting future prospect. After one season on campus, both of them are gone.
That’s part of the game now. It’ll happen to most teams in the country. But, that doesn’t change the optics of losing two exciting players at a premium playmaking…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/heres-graded-missouri-football-transfer-090517257.html
Author : Columbia Daily Tribune
Publish date : 2025-01-18 09:05:00
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