Three days, three running backs, three different realities for Mizzou and Ole Miss.
Saturday’s top-15 SEC showdown in Oxford comes with plenty of familiar faces, including former Rebels now wearing black and gold. But the backfields tell their own story, one built around Jamal Roberts, Kewan Lacy and Ahmad Hardy. Their careers have been shaped by opportunity, transfer, and injury, and now all three enter the same game from very different places.
Roberts has become the centerpiece of Mizzou’s offense. In six games, he has piled up 828 rushing yards on 147 carries with eight touchdowns, and four of his runs have gone for at least 54 yards.
The last two weeks have pushed him into another tier entirely: 433 rushing yards and five touchdowns on 58 carries, with back-to-back 200-yard games against Florida and Texas A&M. His 222 yards against the Aggies helped Mizzou to a 27-6 win, and he became the first Tiger to top 200 rushing yards in consecutive games.
He is also only the third SEC running back in the past two decades to do it, joining Derrick Henry and Leonard Fournette.
That production has come with a heavy load. Roberts has taken about 85% of Mizzou’s running back snaps, a reflection of both his explosiveness and the Tigers’ thin depth chart.
He has also added more to the passing game lately, catching six passes for 37 yards over the past two games. Against Ole Miss, he gets another chance to keep Mizzou’s offense moving and show how quickly his role has expanded.
Lacy’s path runs the other direction, from Columbia to Oxford. As a freshman at Mizzou, he ran for 104 yards on 23 carries.
After transferring to Ole Miss, he turned into a major part of the Rebels’ attack, finishing last season with 1,567 rushing yards and 24 touchdowns on 306 carries. He also caught 29 passes for 177 yards.
His move was not about any animosity between the programs. Lacy simply saw a better chance to develop and contribute at Ole Miss. Now he faces Mizzou for the first time with his own season slowed by injury.
Lacy hurt his shoulder in Ole Miss’ Sept. 19 win over LSU and missed the next game against Florida. He returned last week against Vanderbilt and handled seven carries for 39 yards and a touchdown in a limited role.
Ole Miss coach Pete Golding called getting him back on the field at all a “best-case scenario.” So far this season, Lacy has 230 rushing yards and five touchdowns on 46 carries, and Saturday’s question is how much he can give while working back toward full strength.
Hardy’s situation is the most uncertain of the three. After transferring from Louisiana-Monroe, he put together a huge 2025 season, rushing for a school-record 1,649 yards and 16 touchdowns on 256 carries. That performance earned consensus All-American honors and made him a finalist for the Doak Walker Award.
He was more than a big-play runner. Hardy helped Mizzou stay on schedule, kept drives alive and gave the Tigers the kind of consistency that lets an offense breathe.
Last season, that also allowed Mizzou to split work between two starting-caliber backs, with Roberts in a supporting role. This fall, Roberts has taken on the explosive-play responsibility, but Hardy’s absence has changed the shape of the offense.
Hardy has not returned to practice since the injury he sustained from a shooting in May. Eli Drinkwitz has said Hardy would need a two-week ramp-up period before he could be considered for game action, and as of Oct. 13, he had not started that process. With a bye week approaching, his return remains uncertain.
In his first official statement since the incident in August, Hardy said, “Whenever that time comes, I’ll be out there.”
For now, he watches while Roberts carries the load the two once shared. On Saturday, the three paths meet again in Oxford, each back at a very different point in the story.
In Other News...
Missouri's Season Plans Hinge On A Huge Mark Mitchell Decision
Mark Mitchells status has quietly become one of the biggest offseason storylines around Missouri basketball, and it has everything to do with what happens next for the Tigers in 2025. The forward is seeking a fifth year of NCAA eligibility, with a court hearing scheduled for Oct. 14, and coach Dennis Gates has been publicly backing him through the process. For Missouri, this is not just a paperwork matter. It is a roster issue with real weight for a team trying to map out its season plans.
Mitchells presence would shape how Missouri can build around its core, and his absence would force a different kind of adjustment before the season even begins. The decision remains unresolved for now, leaving the Tigers in the awkward spot of preparing for one version of their roster while waiting on a ruling that could change the outlook in a major way. Until that is settled, one of Missouris most important questions stays open. [Read more 🡒]
Mizzou Heads To Ole Miss With One Big Backfield Concern
Missouris win over Texas A&M kept the Tigers rolling at 5-1 and up to No. 13 nationally, but it also sharpened the picture in the backfield as the team turns toward Ole Miss. Trajen Greco has given the defense a steadier presence, while Jamal Roberts has seen his workload climb and has responded with productive runs. Kenric Lanier II has also started to find a bigger role on offense, adding another layer to a group that has become more important as Missouris margin for error shrinks.
The concern is less about what the Tigers have gotten from the backfield and more about how much they are leaning on it. Roberts has handled a large majority of the carries, and that kind of usage can quickly become a conversation when the schedule tightens and the stakes rise. Missouri has enough momentum to feel good about where it stands, but the trip to Oxford will test whether the Tigers can keep that balance intact. [Read more 🡒]
Mizzou Heads To Ole Miss With One Big Question Hanging Over Saturday
The SECs Wednesday night injury report put an immediate layer of uncertainty on Saturdays matchup between No. 13 Missouri and No. 9 Ole Miss. Mizzou listed 11 players as questionable, a group that included leading receiver Cayden Lee, while Ole Miss had eight players ruled out, among them wide receiver Izaiah Hartrup, giving both teams something to monitor as the week moves on.
For Missouri, the health watch lands at a tricky time because the Tigers are heading into one of the biggest games on their schedule with plenty still unsettled. Beyond football, the athletic department also kept a busy calendar moving this week, as Mizzou gymnastics announced its 2027 slate with SEC competition and the Metroplex Challenge, while womens golf, mens golf, tennis and volleyball all had recent updates and upcoming events of their own. [Read more 🡒]