Missouri football recruiting: Running back Nate Strong qualifies, will be on campus in 2016

PowerMizzou.com’s Gabe DeArmond is reporting that Nate Strong, an original commit for the Missouri Tigers in their 2015 recruiting class, has academically qualified and will be on campus for the 2016 fall semester.

The back-and-forth situation seemed to hit a bump in the road back in June, as DeArmond indicated in the article published on Wednesday afternoon.

In early June, multiple media outlets, including PowerMizzou.com, reported that Strong would not be eligible for this season and would not report to campus until at least December. However, in the interim, something changed. Specific details of the situation are unknown at this point in time.

Suffice it to say, this is outstanding news for new head coach Barry Odom as he looks to guide the Tigers out of the cellar of the SEC East and back to the forefront where they were back in 2013 and 2014 when they won the division in back-to-back seasons.

The Tigers have always seemed to have quality running backs this century. Tony Temple, Henry Josey, and Russell Hansbrough are just three of the many talented backs that have played in CoMO recently, and Strong is expected to add his name to that list as well. Strong is a four-star recruit via 247Sports Composite Rankings and was the fifth-best recruit in the state of Illinois back in 2015. Terry Beckner Jr. led the charts and he, like Strong, a fellow Mizzou commit and talented defensive end, both come from the same high school in East St. Louis.

Strong and junior running back Ish Witter are likely to carry the load in the backfield this season for Mizzou as well as Oklahoma Sooners transfer Alex Ross.