When Donovan Olugbode signed with Missouri his past December, he didn’t talk about campus life, NIL opportunities or even the chance to play in the SEC.
Instead, the IMG Academy receiver talked about a high school quarterback in Royersford, Pennsylvania, with whom he had never played a snap.
“Definitely Matt Zollers and what he can do with the football, and Kirby Moore and his offense,” Olugbode said at the time. “All of that combined, you can’t go wrong.”
He signed with Missouri because of a belief in Zollers and the offense.
But what Olugbode didn’t know — what no one knew — was that that belief would matter this season. Not next fall. Not after a redshirt year. Not after time spent watching, learning and developing.
This wasn’t supposed to happen now.
Three freshmen — quarterback Matt Zollers, tight end Jude James and Olugbode — are pivotal to what Missouri does next. With four games remaining and every goal still on the table, Missouri will lean on some of its youngest players. Two were in high school classrooms last fall, and one exhausted his redshirt while watching from the sideline of Faurot Field.
Freshmen weren’t supposed to define this season. Yet here they are shaping it.
The future arrived early
Mizzou made moves in the offseason to protect itself from the chaos of college football. Coach Eli Drinkwitz rebuilt quarterback depth. He fortified the wide receiver room. He brought in veterans through the transfer portal. He returned leadership at key spots.
And yet, as the calendar turns toward November, the Tigers’ final push isn’t anchored by the players who have already done it.
It hinges on the ones who never have.
Drinkwitz tried to pump the brakes on expectations this week.
“This isn’t pressure,” he said. “It’s a privilege and an opportunity. They’ve earned it.”
Behind closed doors, the staff always believed Zollers could eventually be the face of the program. He was recruited as the future. His arm talent flashed in fall camp, in every rep, in every drill. Missouri didn’t hide its plans.
They just didn’t intend to use them this soon.
A dislocated ankle to starter Beau Pribula forced Zollers into action at Vanderbilt. Late, Mizzou trailed, the offense sputtered and the true freshman was suddenly steering a two-minute drill in an SEC road environment with an opportunity to tie the game.
Nobody blinked — least of all him.
In practice, Zollers had demanded attention with the way the ball jumped off his hand. Earlier this season, when Pribula was temporarily limited, Zollers saw reps with the starters and never gave back the confidence that came with them.
Zollers doesn’t carry himself like a freshman. Drinkwitz calls quarterbacks “fighter pilots and gunslingers,” wired with an irrational confidence in their own readiness, and Zollers fits the description.
Despite that confidence, MU never expected to gamble its College Football Playoff aspirations on a true freshman. Now it has no choice but to lean on it.
The highly touted freshman receiver
When the Olugbode commitment announcement hit in the summer of 2024, it wasn’t just another recruiting win; it felt like a statement. A four-star receiver from IMG Academy who spurned USC, Florida and Oregon chose Missouri because of a freshman quarterback and an offensive scheme.
From Day 1, Olugbode has looked the part. At 6-foot-2 and 207 pounds, his body was college-ready coming out of high school, his hands reliable and his route running already ahead of most true freshmen.
Through the first eight games of his collegiate career, Olugbode has turned heads: 17 receptions for 213 yards and a touchdown, a solid foundation for someone adjusting to SEC speed. His snap count has steadily increased each week as the coaching staff trusts him more in the rotation.
What makes him stand out is less the numbers and more the aura. He tracks the ball aggressively, attacks space and runs routes with a maturity that belies his age.
Now, with Zollers at the helm, the connection the two young players talked about when they signed is about to be tested under the lights at Memorial Stadium. Olugbode’s ceiling is high, and this season is seemingly just the first chapter.
The unlikely tight end
To understand why Missouri trusts James, you need to go back to a summer 7-on-7 camp at Mizzou. James’ high school coach, Brent Chojnacki, remembers the day clearly. He had driven James there with a purpose — to force eyes on a kid he knew was being under-recruited.
James didn’t just hold his own. He took over.
Coaches noticed the way he competed, how he attacked the ball and how he made others rise to his level. Within weeks, he held a Missouri offer.
Chojnacki assumed James would play defense in college. In four years at Francis Howell, James was the guy who wanted the heavy moments — third-and-long, fourth-quarter stops, drive-saving tackles. He looked like a linebacker, he moved like one and he played like one.
“Jude would rise to the occasion,” Chojnacki said. “If we needed a spark, he was the one who made the play.”
What Missouri saw was something else: an athlete who could become a mismatch.
He arrived in Columbia and began climbing the depth chart by doing the mundane before the memorable — core special teams, scout reps, physical blocking. While older tight ends were sidelined by injury, James didn’t make noise. He made progress.
His coach back home says the football part was merely the surface of what makes James so impressive.
“He’ll get accolades for athletics,” Chojnacki said. “But his character — that’s what makes him special.”
James never expected this role to come this soon. Neither did Chojnacki. The surprise isn’t that James has carved out a path.
It’s that he did it on offense.
“I have zero hesitation he’ll rise to the occasion,” Chojnacki said. “He’s a gamer.”
The common thread
Zollers, Olugbode and James have different skill sets and different stories and have taken different paths onto the field. But they operate the same way.
They don’t ask for moments. They absorb them.
Teammates see it — the way Zollers commands a huddle, the way James blocks a veteran defensive end without blinking, the way Olugbode challenges SEC defensive backs.
Missouri doesn’t ask them to be stars. It asks them to be ready.
Veteran center Connor Tollison summed up the mentality ahead of Saturday’s matchup with No. 3 Texas A&M.
“We’ve had opportunities, and we didn’t seize them,” Tollison said. “We have another one now. Let’s fix what we did wrong and get better.”
The Tigers don’t need heroics. They need steadiness. And that’s what the freshmen can, perhaps, give them. Not hype. Not chaos. Calm.
Drinkwitz keeps repeating one message:
“They’ve earned it.”
A November defined by freshmen
Four games remain. Everything Missouri still wants — a chance to surge late, a chance to land in the playoff, a chance to prove last season was not a peak but a launch — runs through a quarterback who is about to start his first SEC game, a true freshman receiver who chose that quarterback and a tight end whose high school coach thought he would be playing linebacker.
This isn’t the plan Missouri built.
But sometimes a season reveals what you didn’t know you had.
Freshmen weren’t supposed to define Missouri’s season. Now they will.
And for a team searching for a spark, maybe that’s the match that needed to be lit.
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