It’s report card season for the football coaches. How did the offensive staff grade out?
It’s report card season for the Mizzou coaching staff and this week we take a look at the individual offensive assistant coaches. I’ve already graded out offensive coordinator Kirby Moore last week, as well as the defensive staff including defensive coordinator Corey Batoon and the individual defensive staff, so take a look at those too if you haven’t.
As discussed in my defensive staff report card, I don’t have the time, and you most likely don’t have the willingness to dive into all 26 assistants and assistants’ assistants on the 2024 Mizzou coaching staff. While the assistants, graduate assistants and the rest of the staff play important roles in advancing the program, it’s nigh impossible to analyze their performance from the outside looking in, so for the purposes of this report card, we’re going to stick with the primary coaches listed for each position.
Rushing Positions
Brandon Jones, Offensive Line
Brandon Jones entered his second season on Eli Drinkwitz’s staff coming off an incredible high in 2023. Fielding perhaps the best Mizzou offensive line in a decade, Jones quickly showed why Eli Drinkwitz brought him in from Houston the prior spring. In 2023, Jones enjoyed an experienced unit which returned four starters in Javon Foster, Xavier Delgado, Connor Tollison and Armand Membou. The lone new guy was someone Jones brought with him from Houston in all-AAC guard Cam’Ron Johnson.
That unit played excellent in both run blocking and pass protection all season long, paving the way for Cody Schrader to set the single season Mizzou rushing record. Fast forward a year and Jones lost his extremely experienced left side with Foster being drafted and Delgado graduating.
Expectations for Jones’ unit, along with the entire offense, were sky high entering 2024, and for good reason. The Tigers’ offensive line returned the starting center and whole right side and replaced the departed left side with another all-AAC player in SMU transfer tackle Marcus Bryant and freshmen phenom transfer Cayden Green.
Unfortunately, like the rest of the offense, the 2024 offensive line failed to meet the lofty expectations. Jones’s unit put up worse numbers in 2024 over 2023 in just about every important category, including yards per rush, rushing yards per game as well as sacks per game, sack percentage and pressure percentage. None of those numbers were overly bad, however, and thankfully the Tigers’ rushing numbers were still in the same ball park as 2023 despite losing Cody Schrader and ultimately that played a big role in carrying the Tigers to 10 wins.
Jones has an even bigger hole to fill going into 2025, losing Marcus Bryant and Cam’Ron Johnson to graduation and Armand Membou to the NFL draft. He brings in a couple experienced transfers to supplement Connor Tollison (who is returning from injury) and Cayden Green, but it will be vital for Jones to find a way to make this very different-looking unit mesh going into next season.
Final grade: B
Curtis Luper, Running Backs
Luper is one of the few remaining position coaches on Eli Drinkwitz’s staff who was hired along with Drinkwitz in December 2019. That is for good reason as he has consistently shown to be one of best developers of talent at the running back position in the country. From Larry Rountree to Tyler Badie to Cody Schrader, Luper has found a way to put a productive and reliable running back on the field every year he has been in Columbia. In 2024, he had an extra special challenge as he was forced to replace Mizzou record-breaking and top-eight Heisman vote getter Cody Schrader. The every down back played an incredible number of snaps for the Tigers in 2023 and put up an incredible number of yards.
For the first time since he and Drinkwitz began at Mizzou, Luper was able to replace almost all of Schrader’s incredible production with not one, but two lead backs in twin transfers Marcus Carroll and Nate Noel. Both players had already shown they could put up big numbers at their previous stops, but neither had produced on an SEC level. Luper was able to find the right mixture of thunder and lightning with Carroll and Noel to come remarkably close to 2023’s rushing yards per game number. Add in the development of sophomore Jamal Roberts, who proved to be a reliable third down back, and Luper was able once again field a very good running back unit in 2024.
Moving into 2025, Luper will once again be forced to replace a massive percentage of his rushing yards and snaps. He’ll do so with Roberts as well as transfer Ahmad Hardy and four-star freshman Marquis Davis. If the previous five seasons have proven anything, Luper will be up to the task.
Final grade: A-
Passing positions
Sean Gleeson, Quarterbacks
Like Jacob Yoro on the defensive side of the ball, Gleeson was an under-the-radar elevation to quartebacks coach once the NCAA relaxed it’s rules on the number of on-field coaches that football teams could employ. Gleeson is a former offensive coordinator who had success in the Ivy League and Oklahoma State. He was hired as an offensive analyst in 2023 until he replaced Kirby Moore as QB coach in July once the NCAA rules changed.
It’s difficult to fully and fairly analyze the job Gleeson did in 2024 for a few reasons. Mainly, he was coaching a fifth-year senior who had already experienced a big leap in production the prior year as well as stepping into an offense returning most of it’s production. Really there wasn’t much for him to change. Unfortunately, the offense, especially the passing game, took a big step back in 2024. While there are many reasons and people to blame for the regression, the quarterback performance, which is Gleeson’s purview, was markedly worse than in 2023.
Mizzou was nearly 50 yards worse per game in passing yards, 5% worse in completion percentage and saw a drop off in yards per attempt and yards per completion. It’s hard to say who is at fault, but not much changed from 2023 to 2024 other than the addition of Gleeson to an on-field role, so it’s easy to lay a lot of the blame at his feet.
However, one area that Gleeson does get some props for his ability to somehow milk a win against Oklahoma out of Drew Pyne. After looking completely unprepared the week before against Alabama and starting slow against the Sooners, Pyne was able to put a good second half together and if Gleeson is going to take blame for the bad, he can get some credit for the good there as well.
Moving into 2025, Gleeson is going to have to prove he can develop talent as he’ll have unproven Beau Pribula and untested Sam Horn to mold into (hopefully) productive SEC quarterbacks.
Final grade: C+
Jacob Peeler, Recruiting Coordinator and Wide Receivers
Jacob Peeler entered 2024 having been on staff for the two previous seasons. Already with a stellar resume of recruiting and developing NFL players like AJ Brown and DJ Metcalf, Peeler kept on the good work in 2023 by helping turn transfer Theo Wease into an NFL player and furthering the development of Luther Burden. In fact, coming into 2024, there were few, if any, teams in the country who could say they had a better wide receiver room than Mizzou.
As is a common theme in these offensive report cards, the receivers and the passing game as a whole failed to reach the heights of 2023. The blame pie can be shared across the board, but it seemed like part of the problem was an inability for several Mizzou receivers to consistently get open on passing routes. Peeler’s unit did do a good job of catching the ball when it was thrown to them, which to a degree, is about all he (and they) can control.
Peeler’s other job is as recruiting coordinator and with the Tigers consistently bringing in excellent high school and transfer classes every year that Peeler has been in Columbia, it’s safe to say he is excelling at that aspect of his job. Overall, I don’t place much blame for the passing game’s woes on the receivers as a unit, even if it was disappointing to see Burden’s drop in production his last year at Mizzou.
Final grade: A-
Derham Cato, Tight Ends
Cato’s job might be the hardest to evaluate of all the position coaches on Drinkwitz’s staff because Drinkwitz has always used his tight ends in strange and inconsistent ways. Additionally, Cato’s starting tight end Brett Norfleet was injured early in the season, missed a few games and ultimately was never fully healthy all season. Norfleet finished with 26 catches for 235 yards and two TDs, which is probably half the production of what Tiger fans hoped to see from the rising star. Jordon Harris has turned into a solid blocking tight end but his ability to catch the ball is lacking at best, totaling just five catches (and about as many drops) all season.
Because Drinkwitz (and Moore’s) offense doesn’t much feature tight ends and uses them in strange ways in the run game (not a pejorative) this is fairly close to being an ‘incomplete’ grade on Cato since there just isn’t a lot to go on. But considering Norfleet’s injury I’ll give him some kind of grade that is not great and not bad, but Tiger fans are hoping for more from the position moving into 2025.