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There’s a lot of buzz coming out of SEC Media Days surrounding Missouri Tigers running back Ahmad Hardy.
It makes sense, too. Hardy was one of the best players in college football last season, let alone one of the best running backs.
Hardy suffered a gunshot wound to the upper leg while leaving a concert on May 10 outside of a biker club in Laurel, Mississippi, though.
That moment put Hardy’s 2026 season with Missouri in jeopardy. Heck, it put his life in jeopardy.
On Monday, head coach Eli Drinkwitz told reporters that Hardy is back en route to playing football. The bullet struck the running back in a bone in his leg, but that bone has been “fully healed and cleared”, according to Drinkwitz (h/t Calum McAndrew of The Columbia Daily Tribune).
Hardy will be entering a return-to-play protocol in about five to eight weeks, but there are some question marks. Drinkwitz wasn’t 100-percent sure what recovery will look like for the star running back, though the consensus All-American is handling the moment about as well as one can.
“We still don’t know what his recovery will be from, ‘Is he the same Ahmad Hardy that was last year?’ My anticipation and what I’ve seen, the way he’s attacked his rehab, he’s going to be a better Ahmad Hardy than what he was before, and I’m very proud of the way that he’s approached his recovery,” said Drinkwitz.
Missouri Tigers must lean on RB Jamar Roberts early on in 2026
In the meantime, the Tigers will turn to redshirt junior running back Jamal Roberts to carry the load, and that’s not a bad thing. That’s not a bad thing at all.
Sure, he’s not Hardy, but nobody is. What Roberts is can be extremely valuable to Mizzou in 2026, though, and that’s steady and experienced.
From St. Louis, Missouri, he’s a former four-star running back who has been with the team since 2023. Last season, he was Hardy’s primary backup and made up one half of one of the best one-two punches in college football.
Roberts rushed 124 times for 753 yards and six touchdowns, averaging 6.1 yards per carry. He also caught 18 passes for 141 yards and a touchdown, averaging 7.8 yards per catch.
Mizzou would obviously like to get Hardy back and get him back better than ever, but there’s no rush in this case because Roberts can absolutely carry the load for the time being.
That’s especially true because Missouri’s schedule is relatively light over the first five weeks of the season. The Tigers kick off with Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Sept. 3 and then play at Kansas, against Troy, at Mississippi State and at Florida.
Kansas is a rivalry opponent, so that will be an intense game, but those are all very winnable games for Missouri — especially because the Gators will still be in the feeling-out stages of the Jon Sumrall era.
If the Tigers can get Hardy back and up to 100-percent or close to it for the second half of the schedule — which features Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma — they could be a contender in 2026.
Leaning on Roberts early on is a big part of this hypothetical plan, though.
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