How does Missouri football need to attack upcoming transfer portal?
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Welcome to the madness. Enjoy your stay.
But, come to think of it, ‘stay’ might be the wrong word for this time of year.
The college football transfer portal opens for entries Jan. 2-16, a much shorter window (and now the only transfer window for college football, with the spring portal eliminated) than in previous years. But a shorter window has not meant fewer expected entrants. If anything, the action has just been condensed.
Missouri football has not been immune. As of Tuesday evening, Dec. 29, nine Tigers had signaled an intention to enter the portal when it opens this upcoming Friday. There will likely be more, at least according to head coach Eli Drinkwitz, and new signings for the Tigers shouldn’t be too far behind.
This is going to be a fascinating offseason for Mizzou, which ended its 2025 campaign with a severely uninspiring 8-5 record after a 13-7 loss to Virginia in the Gator Bowl on Saturday, Dec. 27 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Mizzou did not beat a team with a winning record this season, severely underwhelming in a year that Drinkwitz said he felt he had his most talented roster since arriving in Columbia.
Change is already in motion.
Mizzou has hired a new OC in Chip Lindsey from Michigan to replace new Washington State head coach Kirby Moore. The Tigers have extended Drinkwitz’s contract through 2031 and that has given him a $4-million bump to spend on assistants. There will be a new Week 1 starting quarterback in 2026, whether it be true freshman Matt Zollers or a transfer. New starters in just about every position room, too.
But where do the Tigers place their focus, specifically in the portal?
Money isn’t infinite, and Missouri has had to place a premium on getting several of its key potential returners back for 2025.
That list includes running back Ahmad Hardy, Zollers and standout linebacker Nicholas Rodriguez, all of whom are now expected to be back in 2026.
The college athletics revenue sharing pot — money that athletic departments can distribute directly to their student-athletes — is likely to fall somewhere between $20.5 million and $21.3 million.
Mizzou football will, assuming Drinkwitz’s Tigers are following the CFB standard of receiving about 75% of the rev-share pot, get to spend about $15 million of that money.
There is also third-party name, image and likeness, which doesn’t have an official cap. But, again, there are only so many deals and so much cash to go around.
“I don’t think there’s an awareness nationally or with agencies or parents that the previous style of NIL, pass-the-hat fundraising, renegotiate, ‘OK, well, we’ll go call a booster and find a little bit more money to answer that’ — that’s not possible anymore,” Drinkwitz said Dec. 3. “You have a rev-share amount. You have … third-party NIL that is potentially there, but not guaranteed. And so you have a budget.
“And much like people have to balance their checkbook, you have to balance the budget based off of — ‘this is what we have slotted for this player, and if I change this number, then it’s going to have to come from here.’ And I think that’s a new reality.”
When you look at the Missouri roster, there are needs.
But, Missouri has to be smart about those needs. You can’t just promise life-altering money to every top prospect in the portal. That would be nice, sure. But it’s not reality.
Even assuming all three of Mizzou’s third-year draft prospects (Josiah Trotter, Cayden Green and Damon Wilson II) opt to return to college next season, the Tigers still have to find starters at the following positions, because of players leaving due to eligibility or the portal:
Quarterback, wide receiver, right tackle, center, defensive end, defensive tackle, linebacker, cornerback, safety and punter.
That’s everything except running back, tight end and kicker, for what it’s worth.
Now, some of MU’s returners likely will move up the depth chart to fill some gaps.
But, a bulk of next year’s new starters — using recent history as our guide — will be newcomers.
Best guesses: Missouri adds approximately 15 players to enter the two-deep. That number will change as players make NFL and transfer choices, which makes it likely that we’ll see upward of 20 newcomers in this window.
Mizzou has hired Jake Breske from Tennessee as its president of player personnel and recruiting, meaning he will help . The Tigers also added Gaurav Verma in the summer as their director of football strategy and finance.
On the more unideal side, Every True Tiger Brands (Mizzou’s NIL marketing arm) CEO Brad Larrondo, who was a massive influence in setting up MU’s current NIL infrastructure, departed Mizzou to be closer to home at Washington State.
Between Drinkwitz and his staff, the Tigers have to adjudicate where their biggest needs lie and spend appropriately at those positions. Disseminating exactly what position or player is a more worthwhile expenditure over others is, in no uncertain terms, one of the most important facets of roster building in college football in the modern era.
For instance: If you can only take a star cornerback or a star wide receiver at top-dollar, what do you do? Is it worth spending more on defensive tackle than a right tackle? Do you break the bank on a QB at risk of leaving the budget looking thin elsewhere?
These are questions Missouri — and almost every team in the country, for that matter — will face in January.
The clearest, most obvious starting needs are at wideout and corner. Mizzou is losing almost its entire relevant snap share at both positions.
The Tigers will add a quarterback, and almost certainly a quarterback who has the potential to start in Week 1.
Mizzou absolutely needs a starter at linebacker, as potentially three players from the core four-man rotation could be moving on to the NFL or eligibility. The same goes for defensive end, if Missouri loses its top-two options.
None of the above come cheap, if you’re looking for proven Power-conference chops.
That makes January as much of a game of strategy as just about anything else. Figure out how to maximize a roster’s talent for the least amount of money, and you’ll be among the teams that have a leg up.
So, let’s see how the Tigers play the game.
“What we’re being asked to do has never been done in the history of college football before,” Drinkwitz said. “And, so, we’re all kind of learning at the same time.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Big choices await in portal for Missouri football in rev-share era
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