Mizzou RT Josh Atkins to Miss Extended Time, Who Will Replace Him?

Since we both kind of touched on it there, let's just dive into it. That offensive line. A couple weeks ago I would have agreed that maybe it is among the conference's best offensive lines. You've got Caden Green who is one of the best left tackles of the nation, will probably be picked in the first two rounds next year at the NFL Draft. You've got Dom Giudice who was up and down at left guard last year but has transitioned to center and has looked really good. We'll get into that soon. You've got Curtis Piegler who's a returning starter now. That left guard, you're maybe looking at Zach Owens or Tristan Wilson. I know we debated on that a few weeks back in our depth chart predictions. Either one of those guys is probably relatively serviceable. If that's your worst starter, that's fine. It's looking like now that whatever the left guard is won't be the weakest link of the offensive line because Josh Atkins, an incoming, I believe, sixth-year senior who is set to start at right tackle, had a knee injury in spring training that Drinkwitz originally said was going to hold him out until September or October. At SEC Media Days, Drinkwitz said that it's going to keep him out longer than he initially thought. I believe the exact wording Drinkwitz said was something along the lines of, we originally expected him to be back in midseason and now it's going to be longer than that or potentially longer than midseason of what we hoped. Something along those lines. Atkins now, who is supposed to be this source of stability at your right tackle, goes down. Last season, Keegan Trost was the ultimate cinderblock of reliability. He was pretty flawless most games. That's why he was drafted in the third round by one of the best offensive minds in the league, Sean Fick. Now you go from Keegan Trost to Josh Atkins, who is a little bit of a question mark because he wasn't always consistent at Arizona State and Hawaii, but overall you felt good about him. Now Josh Atkins is set to miss what sounds like at least half the season if Drinkwitz is saying midseason. I don't fully know, but it definitely sounds like that. The backup options aren't great. I'll let you talk about that, but I don't feel good at all about Missouri's right tackle situation. We ranked Josh Atkins as a sight. We ranked him as the second most important player to Mizzou football success this season, and now he's going to miss half the year. That's really bad. I don't mean to fear monger, and I don't think I am. I do think this is pretty bad. Yeah, and especially because it's going to be the blind side. With Simmons obviously being left-handed, that's been a topic of discussion that I feel like everyone wanted to bring out the SEC media days, which it is an important thing to bring up, but that's very important when you look at it from this Atkins perspective that now at this blind side tackle, who are you going to have? He brought up some names. He said Luke Work. He actually said Zach Owens, which was interesting to me. I don't think it. I'm not there on that as well, but it's honestly looking like it could be Work. Logan Reichert. I don't want to see Jack Lange there. So no, I don't think he's huge, man. Do you ever want number one prospect in the state of Missouri two off seasons ago? He's like six, seven, three to five pounds. I think he's young. I know, but I think it's interesting. I think he's the most interesting option. Is he the best right now? Maybe not, but like I can tell you right now, he's going to be a monster in like two years anyway, but I see that I see the qualms. He's a redshirt freshman who played four snaps last year. I see the worry. Yeah, I see like Work is. Work is the maybe the safest option. He's a guy that has played a lot of snaps. He's had eight career starts. He's played real SEC games last year. He only had one start, but he still had I believe it was close to 200 snaps. He basically is a utility guy, which isn't ideal for this very important position for the Missouri Tigers that they have to put a utility guy or they may have to put a utility guy at this position, but also if it ends up looking better on Atkins, we didn't really get an exact timeline, but if he can come back after maybe just a few SEC games, having a utility guy in his place for a while isn't the worst thing ever. He's also six foot six. I believe six, six, three, fifteen, so he's a unit himself, so I don't mind that there, but it's definitely not as not as stable as Atkins was or last year with King and Trost, so that's it's definitely a step back for the Missouri Tigers, but I don't think it is the worst thing in the world, and I'm I'm glad that they got work in the transfer portal. He makes me feel a little bit more comfortable in this situation. Work is definitely a fine backup. He's got the size like you mentioned. He started in the last two seasons three games at right tackle. Not exactly great in either of them. Allowed six pressures, one sack, and two penalties, and then his offense grades on PFF were 57.3, 63.5, and 46.3. Those are in his games at right tackle. Not great. He's gonna, he's still, you know, he's transferring to Missouri, and when offensive linemen transfer to Missouri, they tend to get better. That's that's something to note. The Brandon Jones scheme is awesome. It's one of the best in the conference, if not the best. He's great at getting transfers and elevating them, so you got to keep that in mind as well. Another thing is, and this is what Eli Drinkwet said, he said, and I quote, I think Luke Work has had as good as an offseason as I've ever seen an offensive lineman have. That's what Eli Drinkwet said in the SEC Media Day Small Room. So he's saying that. I would imagine that means Luke Work is going to be the guy to start at right tackle for however long Atkins is out. If he's good, maybe even when Atkins comes back, Work keeps starting. I don't know, but it seems like Work is probably going to be the guy, just based on he's started three games at right tackle before. You can't say that for any of the other backup options, like Colin Sorensen, but he was at FCS last year, not great there. And then like Whit Hafer has been a depth guy for a while. Logan Reichert has been a depth guy for a while, just really hasn't played much, even though he was a pretty highly regarded prospect. Will Kenma going to be in his redshirt freshman season. I don't imagine he's really an option. And then Jack Lang is going to be in his redshirt freshman season. Probably still more on the raw side, but everything is definitely indicating toward Luke Work being the guy from what we've seen, the stats, and now what Eli Drinkwitz has said.