Daeden Hopkins has already become the kind of player Missouri fans notice fast, and the edge rusher from Hermann, Missouri, is doing it while carrying a hometown that listed just 2,185 people in the 2020 census.
That small-town backdrop is part of what makes Hopkins stand out. Hermann is not exactly known for churning out Power Four talent, and outside of Brock Olivo - the former MU running back and assistant coach who spent time there before transferring to St. Francis Borgia Regional High School in Washington, Missouri - Hopkins looks like the town’s biggest football name right now.
He explained the scale of Hermann in a way anybody can understand.
“I tell everybody all the time - we have one chain restaurant in that town, and it's Subway, and it actually just closed down,” Hopkins told reporters Tuesday.
By comparison, Missouri’s campus alone has two Subways, one of which is temporarily closed, and Columbia has eight more, though some of those may also be temporarily closed, according to signs. That’s the kind of leap Hopkins has made from home to college football.
At Hermann High School, he played on both sides of the ball and stuffed the stat sheet in his 2023 junior season, finishing with 67 tackles, 9 sacks, 5 pass deflections, one fumble recovery, 691 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns, per 247sports. Before that, he attended St. George Catholic School, where he said his eighth-grade class barely filled a classroom.
“I'm not sure how many people are in it, but I graduated eighth grade with like eight or nine people,” Hopkins said. “So it was real small.”
That production was enough to put him on the radar of major programs. Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas and Missouri offered him in September and October of his junior year, and three more Power Four schools followed in the months after. In the end, the hometown program won out, and Hopkins committed to Missouri.
He signed in Dec. 2024 and arrived the next June, stepping into a completely different world. The jump from small-school football to the SEC meant dealing with offensive linemen like Cayden Green, Johnny Williams IV, Keagen Trost and Jayven Richardson, all of whom were at least 6-foot-4 and weighed more than 310 pounds.
His first taste of that life came with plenty of nerves.
“I remember taking my first rep, it was in the summer - OTA’s. I was scared.
I was really scared,” Hopkins said. “But, you know, I got through it.”
And once he settled in, he started earning real snaps. Hopkins played double-digit snaps against Central Arkansas, Louisiana and Massachusetts in his true freshman season, then logged a season-high 22 against Mississippi State in Missouri’s final home game.
He finished that one with five tackles and a sack, a glimpse of what he could become. Drinkwitz then sat him for the rest of the year to preserve his redshirt under the NCAA’s previous eligibility rules.
Hopkins stayed put through last offseason’s transfer portal window and put together a strong offseason, adding nearly 15 pounds of muscle to reach 250 pounds. That growth caught the staff’s attention. Edge coach Brian Early told Missouri On SI he saw Hopkins as one of three possible “breakout” players in the room, and Drinkwitz went even further.
"There's a kid from Hermann, Missouri, named Daeden Hopkins," Drinkwitz said at a ZOU-to-YOU event May 19 in Springfield. "And if he stays the course, he'll be a first-round draft pick."
That road stretches out to the 2028 NFL Draft, but Hopkins is off to a loud start. In Missouri’s 38-21 win over Kansas, his first P4 game of the season, he posted three tackles, 1.5 sacks and a forced fumble across the border.
That performance earned him co-SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week honors, and people back home noticed.
“So I actually talked to my mom last night, and she said like everybody's talking about me,” Hopkins said. … “It's an honor. It's a blessing to just be recognized in my hometown.”
Through two games, Hopkins leads Missouri’s defense with 12 pressures, 2 sacks and 9 hurries. He also ranks second among MU edge rushers with 66 snaps, trailing only Darris Smith.
For Missouri, that’s a promising sign. For Hermann, it’s a hometown name getting louder by the week.
In Other News...
Missouri May Have Found The Pass Rusher It Desperately Needed
Missouris defense got a welcome jolt in the Border War, and it came from a player who is still just scratching the surface of what he can become. Defensive end Daeden Hopkins was named Co-SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week after he spent the game harassing Kansas quarterback Isaiah Marshall, finishing with eight pressures in the matchup. For a Missouri front that has been searching for more consistent disruption, Hopkins performance stood out as the kind of edge presence that can change how an offense has to play.
Hopkins, a 19-year-old underclassman, has already piled up 12 pressures this season and sits among the nations top players in that category. Eli Drinkwitz has pointed to the work ethic and development behind the jump, noting that Hopkins has added weight while also becoming more reliable against the run. The bigger question now is whether this was a breakout night or the start of Missouri finally having the pass rusher it has been trying to find. [Read more 🡒]
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Drinkwitz Knows Mizzou Has Two Problems That Could Get Exposed Fast
Missouris loss to Kansas in the 122nd Border War came with a pair of glaring issues that were hard to ignore, and they were the kind that can snowball quickly once SEC play starts to tighten the screws. Special teams had a rough day, and the secondary was uneven enough in coverage to leave head coach Eliah Drinkwitz with more than one area to clean up after a rivalry game that exposed some familiar stress points.
Drinkwitz said he took responsibility for the problems and noted that changes have already been made to address them, which matters because the schedule ahead will not offer much room to breathe. Missouri has to get sharper in a hurry, especially with cornerback play still searching for consistency and the margins getting thinner against tougher opponents. [Read more 🡒]