Mizzou's Maclin on record-setting pace
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
Jeremy Maclin is the kid who always walked around with a football. And, my, with such soft hands, speed and agility, the splendid things he learned he could do with it on the field.
He was going the distance every time.
“That’s how I’ve always felt,” the Missouri freshman receiver said.
At Kirkwood, Mo., High in suburban St. Louis, Maclin practically taunted those who tried to keep him out of the end zone. During his senior season in 2005, he made 11 touchdown receptions, averaging 25.4 yards for each of his 41 catches. He ran for four more scores and even threw for a pair.
While returning punts, Maclin averaged 24.6 yards and scored another TD.
He’d changed his mind about going to Oklahoma in favor of the home-state school because he couldn’t stop thinking about what a nice fit his dazzling abilities would make in the Tigers’ wide-open spread attack.
But, then, in a split second, the ball was taken away. And this time, he gave thought to leaving it lay.
Tearing up a knee, as Maclin did during a workout with his new teammates a month before the start of fall camp in 2006, caused a lot more than just agonizing physical pain.
“‘Do I even want to play?’ crossed my mind,” Maclin said in regard to thoughts he had after learning he’d torn his anterior cruciate ligament.
The glorious fall Saturdays he’d envisioned would have to be replaced by a demanding rehabilitation schedule — one that would carry no guarantee he’d regain his difference-making form.
But once Maclin accepted that reality, doubt seemed like a much better option than the alternative. And so the kid went to retrieve the ball.
“Football’s my life,” he said. “That’s what I want to do.”
Four games into his collegiate career, the 6-foot-1, 200-pounder is well on his way to making a career out of the sport.
At his current pace, Maclin, who leads the nation in all-purpose yardage (averaging 230.2 per game), would finish the season with 2,762 and obliterate Missouri’s existing school record by 1,141.
Playing his first game in his hometown, Maclin scored on a 25-yard reception, returned a punt 66 yards for a touchdown and added a 29-yard run en route to a 227-yard day in the Tigers’ 40-34 victory against Illinois.
Since then, dreams he once had about making big play after big play for the Tigers have been replaced by an expectation to do so.
“He has shown a lot of talent, and the staff did an awesome job of getting him ready,” quarterback Chase Daniel said. “When you tear an ACL, that is a major injury, and some of the cuts he makes, I do not see some NFL players make similar type plays.
“We want to get the ball to Maclin as much as possible — he just makes unbelievable plays.”
Ironically, Maclin was pushed into a bigger role because of an injury suffered by Danario Alexander in the opener.
Replacing someone who had been given a better opportunity to play as a true freshman last season after he’d been hurt, Maclin made seven catches against Mississippi in his first start.
The next week, he burned Western Michigan for 275 yards, scoring on a reception and a run. And in Missouri’s last game against Illinois State, he caught another TD strike and took his second punt back for a score to tie Missouri’s career record.
Currently, Maclin is the only player in the county to have gained 100 yards in each of the all-purpose categories. He has 122 rushing, 244 receiving, 200 on punt returns and 355 on kickoff returns.
“I’ve had to get more physical,” Maclin said, “but once you’ve been doing it for so long, you kind of get the feel.”
That feeling first reappeared during a scrimmage last spring when he caught five passes for 70 yards. It was then that Maclin became convinced he’d completely recovered from his injury.
After dancing 29 yards on a reverse on his first collegiate touch, Maclin realized something else that was even more important to him.
He could be that kid again who was always doing amazing things with the ball.
“This offense,” said Maclin, who is second on the team with 21 receptions and 122 rushing yards, “it gives you an opportunity to make plays. They just put me in position.”
For that, he feels extremely blessed.
“He can do a lot of things to change a game fast,” Tigers’ coach Gary Pinkel said of Maclin, who’s gotten into the end zone a team-high six times.
Added Daniel, “I think any time he touches the ball, he has a chance.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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