Missouri’s 59-day countdown to kickoff lands on Tony Temple, a name that still carries some weight in Columbia. The Tigers are 59 days from opening the 2026 season against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Thursday, Sept. 3 at Faurot Field, and the number fits Temple neatly: his 59-yard touchdown run against Troy in 2005 is the kind of play that sticks in the memory.
That run was Temple’s longest of that season and the second-longest of his career. The only one that topped it came in the 2006 Sun Bowl, when he ripped off a 65-yard run against Oregon State on his way to 194 yards and two touchdowns. Missouri lost that game 39-38, but Temple still walked away with the MVP award.
Temple’s path at Mizzou was never simple. He arrived as one of the biggest football recruits Kansas City had ever produced, ranked No. 27 nationally in the 2004 class by ESPN.
At Rockhurst, he piled up 6,295 rushing yards and 85 touchdowns and helped lead the school to two state titles. The expectations that followed him to Missouri were enormous.
For a while, though, the production didn’t match the hype. He barely played in 2004, then only saw enough action in 2005 to keep people watching.
The source material makes clear that injuries were part of the story, but the bigger point is that Temple had to grow into college football on the job. By 2006, he had started to figure it out, rushing for 1,000 yards and scoring seven touchdowns.
He repeated the 1,000-yard season in 2007 and finished with 12 touchdowns as Missouri won 12 games.
That 2007 team gave Temple his biggest day. Against Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl, he set a bowl record with 281 rushing yards and four touchdowns in a 38-7 Missouri win.
Darren McFadden was on the other sideline, but Temple clearly owned the day. He was named MVP, this time without any asterisk attached.
There was also a quieter, more human side to that final stretch. In Missouri’s 40-26 win over Texas A&M, Temple ran for 141 yards and a touchdown in what became his last home game.
He didn’t speak with the media afterward because he drove to Kansas City for his grandmother’s funeral. Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star wrote that Temple had “the look” that day, and noted how he helped carry Missouri through a tense fourth quarter.
Temple gained 57 of his 141 yards in the final period, and the Tigers needed his work on two scoring drives to finish off the Aggies.
Posnanski summed it up this way: “And it wasn't just the yards,” Posnanski wrote. “It was the effort, the energy, the will.”
“No, you never know how it will turn out,” Posnanski later finished. “Tony Temple isn't going to win the Heisman Trophy.
He isn't going to set Missouri's rushing record. The NFL contract - well, who knows?
There are other things that matter in life, though.
"Four years ago, Tony Temple was an 18-year-old kid who was treated like a king and was told he was invincible. Saturday, he simply willed the Tigers to victory.”
Temple never became the Heisman winner or NFL star some expected, but he did put together two 1,000-yard seasons and carve out a strong career on a very good Missouri team in 2007. For the countdown, that’s enough reason to remember him.
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