The Tigers lost their 25th player to the portal on Tuesday, as safety Mose Phillips II announced his intentions to transfer. Phillips had seemingly been in line for more playing time in 2026 after logging just 148 defensive snaps this past season, but he'll now head elsewhere.
It's certainly a troubling sign for the Tigers, who have only brought in 17 transfers from the portal thus far. And according to On3's SEC Portal Rankings, which compares the talent leaving to the talent coming in, Mizzou is next to last in the conference.
Now, with some major holes still to fill, and most of the top available talent already spoken for, where do the Tigers go from here?
Mizzou needs to act fast to get their roster back on track
There are fewer than 10 four-star rated transfers still available in the portal, and that includes former Tiger Damon Wilson II. So if you've been holding out hoping Eli Drinkwitz will still land that elite program changing transfer, you can probably stop holding your breath. Barring some unforeseen circumstance where Missouri somehow lands the Desir brothers out of Florida State or Tionne Gray from Oregon, the rest of the roster will likely be filled with three-star rated transfers.
Now, obviously these rankings don't mean everything, and Mizzou has their own rankings surely, but it's still a tad worrying that with issues still at edge, defensive back and offensive line there likely aren't top-tier reinforcements coming.
After an 8-5 season, and the loss of a lot of top talent to the draft and the portal, Missouri is in a bit of an uncomfortable spot. Maybe the internal development is way ahead of schedule for some youngers players. Or potentially quarterback Austin Simmons carries the entire team on his back this year. But time is running out to drastically improve the roster, and the opportunities to do it are fewer and fewer by the day.