Mizzou's center of attention: Who mans the middle of Tigers' offensive line?

COLUMBIA, Mo. — There was a time in Mizzou football’s not-so-distant past when the center position produced a steady line of succession of three- and four-year starters that anchored offensive lines from the late 1990s to MU’s early years in the Southeastern Conference.
One of the more remarkable but overlooked stats in the program’s past few decades underscores the stability the Tigers once had in the middle: From 1997-2010, only four players started games at center for Mizzou, beginning with Rob Riti (1997-99), then A.J. Ricker (2000-03), followed by Adam Spieker (2004-07) and Tim Barnes (2008-10) — with all four earning first-team All-Big 12 honors along the way.
In 2011-12, the Tigers played some musical chairs in the middle until Evan Boehm settled into the position in 2013, starting every game for three consecutive seasons.
Since then, Trystan-Colon Castillo emerged as a three-year starter (2017-19), followed by Rutgers transfer Michael Maietti the next two seasons (2020-21). Last fall, Mizzou hoped redshirt freshman Connor Tollison would become the next mainstay in the middle, but an uneven season prompted Eli Drinkwitz’s staff to scour the transfer portal for more depth.
Who’s next? Wait and see.
Through the first five days of preseason camp, Tollison has worked with the first-team offense at center despite the arrival of transfer Cam’Ron Johnson, the first-team All-American Athletic Conference lineman from the University of Houston. With Johnson on the second unit, Bence Polgar, a former starter at Buffalo who was ruled ineligible when he got to Mizzou last year, has worked with the third unit in practice.
Johnson is not Mizzou’s only import from Houston. Johnson, also recruited heavily by Colorado and Southern California, committed to Mizzou on May 6, five weeks after the Tigers hired new offensive line coach Brandon Jones. His prior job? Johnson’s position coach at Houston.
“That was a big thing for me, a familiar face,” Johnson said. “He knows how I play. I know how he coaches. I know he’s going to push the best out of me for what he wants to accomplish this year.”
Although Johnson played left guard exclusively at Houston, Mizzou recruited Johnson to play center, which would first require a camp competition with Tollison, the incumbent.
“It’s a battle,” Jones said at the start of camp. “With (Johnson) having the flexibility to play the interior, I think at the end of the day, we’ve just got to figure out who’s the best five.”
Coaches and teammates praised Tollison for his maturity and intelligence last season, but the staff wanted to see him add some bulk to his 6-foot-4 frame. His shotgun snaps were inconsistent, too. He was flagged for seven penalties, per Pro Football Focus, which tied for second on the team and 10th-most among SEC offensive linemen. After playing at 286 pounds last season he’s listed at 304 this summer.
“I do think Connor’s had a good (offseason) since I’ve been here,” Jones said. “Obviously I’m a little biased toward centers since I played center. ... But I’m expecting (Tollison) to have a good fall camp, simply because he started 13 games last year. He should have some confidence in himself. But it’s the best five.”
As of Friday’s practice, as part of the annual rite of passage under Drinkwitz, a handful of Mizzou’s newcomers had done enough to earn their jersey number. Johnson still wore a blank black jersey Friday — without the No. 74 he’ll eventually wear this year. Mizzou’s two freshmen offensive linemen hadn’t earned their numbers by Friday’s practice either: tackle Brandon Solis (No. 78) and guard Logan Reichert (66).
As for Johnson, nobody knows him better than his position coach. His hopes remain high.
“We’ve been through a lot of stuff together,” Jones said. “We’ve been victorious and, we’ve taken some losses. But just to see him grow and mature throughout the years … he hasn’t always been what he is now. But I’m just really proud of the man, probably more so than the football player he’s become. Grit and toughness.”
Had he stayed at Houston, Johnson would have played in a Power Five conference this fall — Houston makes its Big 12 debut this season — but he sought more when he became one of 22 players to leave UH’s program, per On3.com’s national transfer portal tracker.
“Houston is a very great program,” Johnson said. “It was a very hard decision to leave, not only the people there but I’m from Houston. But I definitely felt like I would have a better opportunity in the SEC. Not that it’s necessarily better than the Big 12, but I just wanted to play against the top competition.”
Johnson’s transition from guard to center is only a few steps over along the line of scrimmage, but he’s spent the summer sharpening his snaps. Johnson, a three-star offensive tackle prospect out of high school, regularly practiced snaps at Houston but never played center in live drills.
“It’s been enjoyable,” he said. “It’s something that I know I can do. It’s not hard. It’s like throwing a football. I just have to get it down.”
At Houston, Johnson earned all-league status as a lock-down pass-blocker. Per PFF, in 586 pass-blocking snaps he allowed just one sack and two quarterback hits last fall. But no matter who mans the middle, Drinkwitz has made it clear: The Tigers need to upgrade in the trenches, whether that means new starters or improved starters.
“I think obviously it’s no secret that we have to be able to run the ball better and protect the quarterback, take hits off the quarterback,” Drinkwitz said. “So creating a cohesive unit, five working together as one, there’s a lot of moving parts in that situation right now.”