4. Missouri Tigers
SEC recruiting classes are always graded on a curve.
Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Florida, Texas A&M, and in normal years, Auburn come up with unrealistic recruiting classes no normal program can think of landing. So for everyone else, the goal is to get enough prospects that fit, all while not worrying that the class might only be among the 10th-or-so best in the conference.
And that’s the problem. An SEC school could land a top 25 national recruiting class and not be within 100 miles of upper half of the SEC hauls.
This was the year to take advantage of coaching changes and instability at South Carolina, Tennessee and Auburn. Missouri might not be after the same players those three are region-wise, but it helped that those other three are in reboot mode.
So even with all of that, the 2021 Mizzou class really is good.
– 2021 Missouri Schedule Analysis, Best & Worst Scenarios
Head coach Eliah Drinkwitz has the chops, the personality, and the positivity needed to be a strong recruiter, and his staff did the work in his first full year on the job.
It starts with the defensive line – landing a few ends from the general recruiting area to possibly be instant factors in the pass rushing rotation – getting QB Tyler Macon and RB Taj Butts was big for the backfield, and the secondary is loaded with prospects in an SEC that suddenly turned into late 2010’s Big 12.