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COLUMBIA, Mo. 鈥� That鈥檚 training camp done then.

Missouri football closed out its preseason camp over the weekend, wrapping up three weeks of practice with a Saturday night scrimmage inside new-look Memorial Stadium. The No. 25 Tigers have a week and a half until their Sept. 3 opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, a period of practices that will now look more like the weekly routine of in-season prep work.

The pursuit of talent knows almost no bounds, particularly in the dog-eat-dog world of college recruiting where your loss is someone else鈥檚 gain. The legendary late great former men鈥檚 college basketball coach John Chaney once told me of recruiting, 鈥淓ither you鈥檝e got a leg up or you got a leg in your ass.鈥�

Chaney, a member of both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, made the comment on the telephone in the aftermath of his former prot茅g茅 having been fired from a head coaching position in Upstate New York more than a decade ago.

COLUMBIA, Mo. 鈥� Star Missouri running back Ahmad Hardy will miss the start of the 2026 season, Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz said Saturday.

Hardy, recovering from a gunshot wound, did not practice during Mizzou's approximately three-week training camp that concluded this weekend and thus won't be ready for the program's Sept. 3 season opener against Arkansas Pine-Bluff.

COLUMBIA, Mo. 鈥� Mark Mitchell sounded like a man who鈥檇 give a lot to play in Mizzou Arena one more time.

It was March 7. The Tigers had just lost their regular-season finale to Arkansas in overtime, another grueling loss despite Mitchell scoring a career-high 32 points and playing 43 minutes. It was the star power forward鈥檚 last collegiate home game 鈥� or so it seemed 鈥� so afterward, Mizzou coach Dennis Gates handed him a microphone.

COLUMBIA, Mo. 鈥� The rise of Langden Kitchen at Missouri is a familiar one, a testament to his individual talent and the Tigers鈥� repeatable developmental process.

The fourth-year defensive end is expected to take over a starting role on Mizzou鈥檚 defensive line this season, playing as the bigger-bodied edge opposite Darris Smith. Kitchen鈥檚 story is reminiscent of a strong lineage of MU defensive ends and a certain former Division II player who came before him, such that this ascension feels almost routine for the football program.

On a football field, those defensive linemen or outside linebackers labeled 鈥渆dge rushers鈥� tend to be high-motor, high-energy monsters with big bodies, wide wingspans and the ability to go around or through some of the biggest, strongest blockers in the game.

Basically, they鈥檙e large, explosive, athletic freaks with ill intentions who are hell-bent on chasing down opposing quarterbacks. I found it enthralling that Mizzou鈥檚 next best bet at a dominant edge rusher is a young man whose trademark was his ability to run. So much so that he won a Georgia high school听state听track championship in the 400-meter dash and competed in the 200 meters. A sprinter?

A Kentucky judge on Friday granted former Missouri men's basketball star Mark Mitchell the ability to enter the transfer portal, clearing the path for the power forward to play his fifth season of college hoops at Kentucky.

Mitchell was already eligible to return to Mizzou for the 2026-27 season after a sweeping federal court order in Colorado made it possible for all athletes in the high school recruiting class of 2022 to play a fifth year. That order 鈥� since rescinded by another federal court 鈥� only allowed those players to return to the schools they'd previously been playing for unless they had already entered the transfer portal.

COLUMBIA, Mo. 鈥� Missouri football鈥檚 best season this decade, and best season under coach Eli Drinkwitz, came in 2023. Since then, the Tigers have not been able to match the 11 wins and top 10 finish that team managed in a breakout campaign.

What went missing after that season and has yet to be rediscovered by Mizzou became a positional priority heading into 2026.