If someone on the street walked up to you and said “name the biggest issue Missouri’s defense has faced over the past three years” and gave you five seconds to answer, you’d probably respond “allowing big plays”.
If you read anything I’ve written over the same time frame, you’d probably be able to dial down a little further and say “allowing explosive pass plays”.
But you know what? The 2025 defense actually ended up being excellent against the pass last year, thanks to a huge leap in defense capabilities
against explosive plays.
Missouri opponents had a -0.07 EPA per drop back (Missouri ranked 24th in the nation in the stat. Excellent!), 6.7 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (28th), and only gave up a 20+ yard gain 13% of the time (25th).
Go back to ‘23 and ‘24 and those numbers were flipped, ranking in the bottom 25 for most of those categories.
But, of course, not only is Missouri’s defense getting nearly an entire makeover, but all three corners from last year’s three man rotation are gone.
So now what?
Today we’ll look at the corners and safeties currently on the roster and see how they stack up in pass defense.
First, some definitions:
- Completions/Attempts: just like you would read it for a quarterback, except you want the reverse! The number of completions the defender allowed is listed first, followed by the number of times his receiver was targeted. The lower the completion percentage number, the better.
- Passes Broken Up: you can probably figure this one out…the number of times the defender in question managed to physically break up a pass from being caught by the receiver.
- Interceptions: the number of interceptions the defender logged. Don’t overthink this one.
- Forced Incompletion Rate: this stat was created to account for bad throws from the quarterback. This is an incompletion that was caused by the defender getting in the way and affecting the receiver’s ability to catch the ball. Overthrows, underthrows, tipped balls at the line, or other such non-DB occurrences are removed for this stat.
- 20+ Yard Completions Allowed: another self-explanatory one. How many times the defender’s receiver caught the ball for 20+ yards.
- Yards Per Attempt: number of yards the defender allowed divided by the number of times his receiver was targeted.
- Opponent QBR: if you took every quarterback that Missouri played and mashed them into one guy, this is the QBR of that Megazord-QB when throwing at this particular defender.
Let’s look at the guys who have been with the team at least one year:
- Santana Banner (S): 12-21 completion/attempts (57.1% completion percentage), 3 passes broken up, 1 interception, 14.3% forced incompletion rate, 4 20+ yard completions allowed, 8.6 yards per attempt, 56.9% opponent QBR
- Nick DeLoach, Jr. (CB): 1-4 (25% comp), 1 PBU, 0 INTs, 25% forced INC%, 0 Comp 20+, 0.8 YPA, 0.9 QBR
- Shamar McNeil (CB): 3-4 (75% comp), 1 PBU, 0 INTs, 25% forced INC%, 0 Comp 20+, 6.3 YPA, 98.1 QBR
- Cameron Keys (CB): 0-3 (0% comp), 1 PBU, 0 INTs, 33.3% forced INC%, 0 Comp 20+, 0.0 YPA, 1.8 QBR
- Trajen Greco (S): 1-3 (33.3% comp), 0 PBUs, 0 INTs, 0% forced INC%, 0 Comp 20+, 1.3 YPA, 0.6 QBR
- Jackson Hancock (S): 0-1 (0% comp), 0 PBUs, 0 INTs, 0% forced INC%, 0 Comp 20+, 0.0 YPA, 0.4 QBR
The biggest thing to take away here: it’s hard to take away anything from this. Missouri’s most experienced pass defender was only thrown on 21 times last year, so there isn’t a large enough sample size to get a good idea of what’s to come from this collection of Beans Banner and 2025’s backups. It’s a good thing the staff portalled in a bunch of dudes, then, huh?
Now, let’s look at that portal class of DBs:
- Chris Graves, Jr. (CB): 12-27 completion/attempts (44.4% completion percentage), 3 passes broken up, 0 interceptions, 11.1% forced incompletion rate, 3 20+ yard completions allowed, 7.4 yards per attempt, 54.9 opponent QBR.
- Kensley Louidor-Faustin (S): 14-20 (70% comp), 2 PBUs, 1 INT, 10% forced INC%, 3 Comp 20+, 7.8 YPA, 96.6 QBR
- Sione Laulea (CB): 2-9 (22.2% comp), 2 PBUs, 0 INTs, 22.2% forced INC%, 0 Comp 20+, 2.6 YPA, 6.5 QBR
- Elijah Dotson (S): 2-4 (50% comp), 0 PBUs, 1 INT, 25% forced INC%, 2 Comp 20+, 10.5 YPA, 88.8 QBR
- (Jahlil Florence and JaDon Blair were not in active pass coverage last year)
At first glance this is…fine? Frankly the thing that stands out the most is that four of the guys that portalled in didn’t play much last year, and I thought that the idea was to bring in veteran guys to fill in the gaps left by Dre Norwood, Toriano Pride, and Stephen Hall. Instead, you get two fairly seasoned vets in Graves and KLF, plus two Oregon corners with 1 year of eligibility a piece with a combined 9 targets last year, and two young guys who were always meant to be depth/building block pieces.
Second, Graves isn’t nearly the impact corner that I thought he was coming in. 44% completion percentage is ok but a 54.9 QBR is hovering towards the bottom quartile in the nation, and allowing 7.4 yards per attempt while only breaking up 3 passes on a 11% FINC is not super impressive.
But! Don’t interpret that as me writing these guys off! If you remember this time last year I was unimpressed with what Stephen Hall was bringing to the corner rotation and thought he would be a liability. Why? Here is what he did in 2024 at Washington State:
- Stephen Hall 2024: 38-66 (57.6 comp), 3 PBUs, 1 INT, 6.1% forced INC%, 6 Comp 20+, 7.2 YPA, 71.4 QBR
And here’s what he did last year:
- Stephen Hall 2025: 11-23 (47.8% comp), 2 PBUs, 0 INTs, 8.7% forced INC%, 3 Comp 20+, 9.1 YPA, 91.8 QBR
A bit of a mixed bag, wouldn’t you say? But he cut down on the explosive plays allowed and improved a tick on his forced incompletions while bettering his completion percentage. Not bad for a one year rental, and – given my overwhelming thought that this is going to be a bridge year with a rebuilding defense – I don’t mind Mizzou’s transfer DBs improving in a few key areas only.
But if they want to improve across the board, I’ll take that, too.
As a reference point, here is what Toriano Pride (corner), Dre Norwood (also corner), and Daylan Carnell (slot corner/safety) did last year:
- Pride (CB): 16-44 (36.4% comp), 3 PBUs, 2 INTs, 6.8% forced INC%, 2 Comp 20+, 4.0 YPA, 34.6 QBR
- Norwood (CB): 11-29 (37.9% comp), 3 PBUs, 0 INTs, 10.3% forced INC%, 0 Comp 20+, 4.0 YPA, 52.4 QBR
- Carnell (S): 14-29 (48.3% comp), 3 PBUs, 1 INT, 10.3% forced INC%, 2 Comp 20+, 5.5 YPA, 23.4 QBR
That’s what Missouri is losing, and that is what everyone listed above will try to replicate.
Conclusion
Corey Batoon has improved Missouri’s explosive pass plays defense every year since his arrival but is restarting with a bunch of small-sample warriors and some transfers without proven experience or an elite track record. This goes back to my argument about tackling accuracy: if the Batoon system makes people better than there’s stuff to like here. But one-year rentals are just that: a stop gap. And it would be great if last year’s backups and youngsters can acclimate/take over at starting spots, get their lumps in a rebuilding, year, then stick around to make the leap in ‘27.
In the meantime, it can be a bumpy ride for the ‘26 pass defense if Batoon can’t get the new guys to improve on what they’ve shown already.
