Missouri Tigers: Chase Abbington, Malik Cuellar Leave Team
Two of the Missouri Tigers’ top junior college recruits from 2015 have decided to retire from football.
As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Dave Matter first reported on Tuesday, Missouri Tigers running back Chase Abbington and offensive lineman Malik Cuellar have decided to leave the Mizzou football program.
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Neither player will pursue football opportunities at other schools, instead opting to end their respective playing careers.
Along with defensive end Marcell Frazier, Cuellar and Abington were high-profile junior college acquisitions from the 2015 recruiting class. Abbington, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound running back from Fort Zumwalt South high school in St. Louis, was originally a member of Mizzou’s 2012 recruiting class, but he had to take a two-year detour at Hutchinson Community College before finally arriving last summer.
Despite his status as a highly-regarded four-star prospect, Abbington had just six carries for 39 yards last season, all of which came during the Tigers’ first six games. With his departure, Mizzou has just four running backs left on the active roster: the presumptive starter, junior Ish Witter, as well as redshirt sophomore Trevon Walters and redshirt freshmen Marquise Doherty and Ryan Williams. With that said, they’ll get two new additions, Damarea Crockett and Nate Strong, later this year, so it’s not as if Abbington’s departure leaves the Tigers ransacked in the backfield.
Cuellar’s departure almost feels expected, seeing as the offensive lineman’s close friend, quarterback Maty Mauk, was dismissed from the team despite a passionate plea from Cuellar to keep him around. Cuellar, a 6-foot-5, 300-pounder from the City College of San Francisco, was expected to push for the Tigers’ left tackle job but couldn’t break through in 2015. Though he saw action in eight games as a reserve, his most notable moment as a Tiger was when he was suspended, along with Mauk, for an unspecified violation of team rules in late September.
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The Tigers will gain incoming freshmen Trevour Simms and Trystan Castillo this summer, but Mizzou has just eight scholarship linemen as things stand now (plus defensive tackle Tyrell Jenkins, who is currently practicing on offense). It seems to be a foregone conclusion that something bizarre will have to happen in order for the Tigers to field a proper two-deep up front this year; either they’re going to have to make a late addition to the recruiting class, a defensive lineman will have to move over and quickly adjust to offense, a walk-on will have to impress and work his way onto the two-deep, or Simms and Castillo will have to be ready to step up and play in games as true freshmen in 2016. With this in mind, Cuellar’s departure is particularly concerning considering that the Tigers used five different offensive line combinations last season.