Missouri Tigers Football Recruiting: National Signing Day 2016 Live Tracker

Wednesday will be a big day for the Mizzou football program as Barry Odom navigates through his first National Signing Day as head coach.

For a Mizzou football program that made back-to-back SEC Championship game appearances in 2013 and 2014, just their second and third years in the country’s most dominant conference, it’s been an overwhelmingly stressful last year-and-a-half. As if a mass exodus of talent to both graduation and the NFL Draft after 2014 wasn’t enough, the departure of athletic director Mike Alden, the retirement of head coach Gary Pinkel, a summer car accident that wiped out the entire 2015 season of the Tigers’ most talented player, defensive tackle Harold Brantley, and the suspension and recent dismissal of quarterback Maty Mauk have made things extremely hectic in Columbia. For those reasons and a variety of others, it will be extremely interesting to see what interest in Mizzou is like among prospects for Wednesday’s National Signing Day.

Going into signing day, the Tigers’ recruiting class is ranked 51st in the country according to Rivals. That’s highly disappointing for a competitive SEC program, but not too surprising considering that first-time head coach Barry Odom took over late in the recruiting season. That’s not even to mention any angst or fear that could exist among prospects following the highly-publicized walkout that the Mizzou football team conducted last November in an attempt to fight racial tension on campus.

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Here’s a list of the prospects that are considering Mizzou, which we’ll update as they announce their intentions on Wednesday: (last updated Thursday at 2:30 PM CT)

Who’s In?

(all star rating grades according to Rivals)

ALREADY ENROLLED:

• Tyler Howell, OT, 6’9, 305, El Dorado, KS (JUCO)- three-star prospect
• Tucker McCann, K, 6’1, 185, O’Fallon, IL- three-star prospect
• Trey Baldwin, LB, 6’3, 223, Houston, TX- two-star prospect

SIGNED WEDNESDAY TO LOIs:

• DeMarkus Acy, S, 6’1, 182, Dallas, TX- three-star prospect
• Jerod Alton, CB, 5’10, 178, Kirkwood, MO- three-star prospect
• Trystan Castillo, OG, 6’4, 280, Webb City, MO- three-star prospect
• Dominic Collins, WR, 6’2, 175, Mission Viejo, CA (JUCO)- three-star prospect
• Damarea Crockett, RB, 5’11, 212, Little Rock, AR- four-star prospect
• Cale Garrett, LB, 6’3, 220, Kearney, MO- three-star prospect
• Christian Holmes, WR, 6’1, 182, Atlanta, GA- two-star prospect
• Dimetrios Mason, WR, 6’0, 170, Loganville, GA- two-star prospect
• Albert Okwuegbunam, TE, 6’5, 215, Springfield, IL- three-star prospect
• Brendan Scales, TE, 6’4, 220, Wildwood, MO- three-star prospect (decommitted from Alabama on Tuesday evening)

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• Trevour Simms, OG, 6’3, 317, East St. Louis, IL- three-star prospect
• Nate Strong, RB, 6’1, 211, Raymond, MS (JUCO)- four-star prospect
• Greg Taylor, S, 5’10, 205, Raymond, MS (JUCO)- three-star prospect
• Markell Utsey, DT, 6’4, 295, Little Rock, AR- two-star prospect
• Micah Wilson, QB, 6’3, 205, Tulsa, OK- three-star prospect
• Tre Williams, DE, 6’5, 220, Columbia, MO- four-star prospect

COMMITTED BUT NOT YET SIGNED TO LOIs:

• Jack Lowary, QB, 6’3, 233, Santa Ana, CA (JUCO)- three-star prospect (committed to Mizzou on Thursday afternoon)

TRANSFERS:

• Chris Black, WR, 6’0, 192, University of Alabama- announced intentions to transfer to Mizzou on Tuesday.

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Who’s Out?

• Keyshon Camp, DT, 6’3, 274, Lakeland, FL- three-star prospect (chose Pittsburgh over Mizzou)
• Josh Jacobs, RB, 5’10, 200, Tulsa, OK- three-star prospect (chose Alabama over Mizzou, Oklahoma, and Purdue, among others)
• Marvin Terry, DE, 6’2, 230, Dallas, TX- three-star prospect (will not sign after being arrested on suspicion of assault last month)

What’s the biggest storyline going into Signing Day?

With recruiting unsurprisingly difficult this year for the Tigers with a coaching change having occurred recently, the biggest story of this year’s process has to be how the recruiting plan has evolved since Odom’s takeover.

Odom’s decision to load his coaching staff with assistants who had ties to the Texas/Oklahoma region was an immediate sign that the Tigers wanted to restore their presence in that area. That region had been arguably the Tigers’ biggest recruiting pipeline area for much of their run in the Big 12, but recruiting there tailed off significantly after Mizzou moved to the SEC in 2012. The four recruits that they already have secured for this year are the most that the Tigers have brought in from Texas and Oklahoma since 2013.

The Tigers also continue to penetrate SEC country; Damarea Crockett and Markell Utsey of Little Rock will be the only two Arkansan scholarship players on the roster in 2016, while Georgia commits Christian Holmes and Dimetrios Mason will join a group of Georgians that has grown during each year that the Tigers have been in the SEC.

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Running back Nate Strong and safety Greg Taylor, who both had to take detour trips to junior college, as well as guard Trevour Simms, are expected to join the team and help create an increasingly large group of Tigers that hail from East St. Louis high school. They’ll join their former teammate, defensive tackle Terry Beckner Jr. (assuming that his current indefinite suspension is resolved at some point).