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COLUMBIA, Mo. — Watching Missouri’s defensive ends practice is a lesson in ballistics, a matter of precision and explosion.

As the Tigers’ deepest position group practiced Saturday, they focused on the intricacies of rushing the quarterback from the edge. Keeping arms churning along with legs, constantly sparring with a coach swatting them with padded hands. Powering around a corner with all the downforce of a Formula 1 car before launching into a tackling dummy. While rushing, shifting their weight inside for a beat before Euro-stepping back out to the edge.

The obvious takeaway from this lesson is that Mizzou’s group of edge rushers is going to be a problem — for opposing tackles and quarterbacks, yes, but also a math problem for their own coaches.

There are seven defensive ends on the roster with real cases for playing time in 2025.

Yet “we’re looking for four starters,� edge rushers coach Brian Early said at the start of fall camp.

That’s why competition at D-end is as fierce as anywhere else in the program, even if this is the position with the most upside.

“They really all want to work, to compete to be the man,� coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “That sets a little bit more of a drive to them. And there’s only going to be two run out there (on any given play).�

MU doesn’t split its defensive ends up into playing on the right or left side but rather as “field� (the wider side of the field) or “boundary� (the side closer to a sideline) ends.

Zion Young, the former Michigan State transfer who produced 2 1/2 sacks, 5 1/ tackles for a loss and a fumble recovery in his Missouri debut last season, will return to the field position. He’s likely to be the starter there.

Appalachian State transfer Nate Johnson has worked behind Young at the field spot. He put together a 7 1/2-sack season for the Mountaineers when he was a freshman in 2023.

Langden Kitchen, who’s moving up from Division II Northwest Missouri State, has also slotted in at field end. He accumulated 5 1/2 sacks in two seasons there.

“All of those guys are 260-plus (pounds),� Early said.

That tends to lead to a bit more power at field end. The boundary is where the leaner, ultra-athletic edges line up.

“You got some different body types over there into the boundary,� Early said.

The two headliners at boundary end are Georgia transfers Damon Wilson II and Darris Smith.

Wilson, who was a five-star high school prospect and the top-ranked edge rusher to transfer this offseason, has 3 1/2 sacks and six tackles for a loss in two seasons of college football.

Smith, meanwhile, is the great what-if of 2024, having impressed during offseason workouts but gone down during fall camp with a torn ACL.

“He looks like the same old Darris to me,� Early said. “He’s got a really unique skill set, has some freaky qualities to him and we’re excited to think about how we can utilize him.�

The Tigers’ two true freshman edges have also slotted in at the boundary.

Javion Hilson, a high school All-American who racked up 38 1/2 sacks in Cocoa, Florida, looks fast and smooth enough to play this season. (Though drills against real linemen, not tackling dummies, are what will indicate that — and those have not been open to media during this camp.)

Daeden Hopkins, a Hermann product who was the No. 2 recruit in the state, has also earned positive reviews and earned his jersey number.

So how does that turn into a starting rotation of four defensive ends?

If camp plays out in favor of experience, it’ll be Young and Johnson at field end with Wilson and Smith on the boundary. Interestingly, Johnson and Smith are considered “swing� ends who can play both positions. Don’t be surprised if they flip during games to add a wrinkle to Mizzou’s pass rush.

It’s not like Kitchen, Hilson and Hopkins will idly sit on the bench, though, which is why Early might find loopholes to give more than four edge rushers roles.

“(We) like to have four starters, people that are rotating in and out throughout the game on base downs,� Early said, “and then (we’re) also looking for anybody that’s got a unique skill set that can maybe help us on a sub package — whether that’s third and long, third and short, low red zone, whatever that is. So you’ve got the possibility of a couple more situation players that may be like a third-down specialist type of role. ... That’s where we could get that fifth or sixth guy into the rotation.�

Given that Young is the only player in this group entering what’s likely to be his final season, MU has quite the pipeline of defensive ends in place.

For Missouri fans, that could rekindle memories of a decade ago when the likes of Kony Ealy and Michael Sam were succeeded by Shane Ray and Markus Golden — all four NFL draft picks in back-to-back years.

For edge coach Early, the potential of his defensive end room brought back the vibe of what he established in Houston, when edge rushers Payton Turner, Logan Hall and Derek Parish were drafted in three successive years.

“There were some draft picks that were being backed up by draft picks on that particular team,� he said. “I think we may be trending towards that situation here.�