Mizzou Football: Larry Rountree III will be critical piece in offense

Larry Rountree III has one more year of eligibility left for Mizzou football and he’ll definitely be trying to shine in 2020.

The Missouri Tigers are entering the Eliah Drinkwitz era and they’ll also have a new quarterback under center. In order to help the offense thrive to the level that the Tigers hope it can get to, Larry Rountree III has to step up and help carry the load, which shouldn’t be a problem for the soon-to-be senior running back.

This will be the fourth and final year of Rountree’s time in Columbia and he’s been a nice player for Mizzou to this point. His best year to this point came as a sophomore in 2018 where he rushed the ball 225 times for 1,216 yards and 11 touchdowns and he proved during that season that he could be the dominant kind of running back that MU needs.

His follow-up season wasn’t as good, but still pretty respectable. He ran the ball 186 times for 829 yards and nine touchdowns, so while the numbers were down from 2018, he still had a nice campaign and still showed he could take over games. The offense as a whole wasn’t as good in 2019 (ultimately costing Barry Odom his job) and that’s also another reason as to why Rountree might not have been in his 2018 form.

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Rountree will be the RB1 for 2020 (assuming a season happens) and he’ll have some nice depth behind him, including Tyler Badie, Dawson Downing, and Elijah Young. These young running backs will look to Rountree for guidance and hopefully will be able to contribute throughout the season.

Even with this young group of talent, Rountree will be expected to carry the load and with a new quarterback taking over, it’ll be very important for him to make sure he makes his carries count. He’s never been a big threat in the receiving game, which is unfortunate, so maybe that can be a point of emphasis for Rountree this year.

With this being Rountree’s final year of eligibility, he’ll have to make a big enough splash to get drafted in the 2021 NFL Draft, which is definitely a possibility for him. He could have declared this past season, but it’s probably wise that he didn’t, as he’d likely have gone undrafted.

Missouri should be a bowl team in 2020 even with a new head coach at the helm. They’ll have a new quarterback for the third straight year, but the rest of their team is pretty stacked and that should definitely help them contend in almost every game they have this year.

With no bowl ban in 2020 and the talent aplenty on the roster, Mizzou football will look to make a splash and Larry Rountree III will be front and center of all of it.