Team USA Tight End: Albert Okwuegbunam

Ever wondered what a Mizzou team that was comprised of only Missouri kids would look like? Or wonder how good an only-Texan Mizzou squad would do? Well, you’re in luck! This offseason, the Rock M Masthead is assembling the best team of Mizzou players by state that they graduated high school from. We compiled a list of the significant starters on every team from the year 2000 on and voted on the best players at their position group in order to create three “All-State” Mizzou squads: Team Missouri, Team Texas, and Team USA. Over the next nine weeks you’ll read about these Mizzou Greats that hailed from the respective regions and, hopefully, come away impressed with just how good these fictional teams could actually be.

This week, the series moves to tight end.

I mean, was there ever a question?

I loved Sean Culkin, he was an underrated player in his time and has developed into a decent NFL TE but the choice here was always Albert O.

I have said before in the past that I don’t think that there’s a tight end in Mizzou history that stacks up to Okwuegbunam from a physical standpoint. There isn’t a guy that you can point to who has his size and speed combination. He was legitimately fast enough to get past safeties, yet big enough to absorb blows from linebackers. At the end of the day though, we’re talking about a guy who’s had these huge capabilities but still needed to produce, and that he did.

Okwuegbunam is #2 in all time touchdowns in Mizzou history with 23. That sounds good, but lets put that in perspective a bit. The only players in the top 10 to not exhaust their eligibility were... Jeremy Maclin, (22 in two years) DGB, (17 in two years) and Albert O. (23 in three years) That’s some impressive company, but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

In the eyes of some fans though, his career at Mizzou was underwhelming at certain points. He had drop issues, and his production against good to great competition left something to be desired most of the time. He won’t ever inspire the same feelings in Mizzou fans that guys like Coffman or Rucker do. That’s okay though.

Albert O still deserves a seat at the table.

Team USA to this point has had a nice combo of speed and heart, and now they added a game breaking talent to hurt teams across the middle. Imagine the RPO’s that would be run between a Brad/Larry backfield and Albert O at TE. Good luck stopping that.

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