ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - One of Missouri's highest ever recruits in school history for football is set to reportedly enter the transfer portal after only one season.
According to Hayes Fawcett of On3, Mizzou True Freshman edge rusher Williams Nwaneri, who was a five-star recruit coming out of Lee's Summit North High School in the Kansas City-area, will reportedly plan to enter the transfer portal a year after he committed to the school.
Nwaneri was one of the highest recruits to ever commit to the University of Missouri, with 247 Sports ranking Nwaneri as the most valuable defensive player to ever commit to Mizzou and the program's third-highest ever commit, behind only wide receivers Dorial Green-Beckham and Luther Burden III.
Nwaneri, who was the sixth-highest rated high school recruit in the country in the 2024 recruiting cycle according to 247 Sports, committed to Mizzou on Aug. 14, 2023 choosing the Tigers over bigger programs like Oregon, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Georgia and Texas A&M.
Nwaneri was a key piece of Mizzou's 2024 recruiting class that would wound up finishing a top 25 recruiting class in the nation.
Nwaneri's commitment to Mizzou notably drew a viral reaction from Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz at the time.
However, when Nwaneri joined the program, he did not get immediate playing time, being stuck down in Mizzou's depth chart on the edge and would only play four games, which is the max for a player can play without burning their redshirt.
Overall, Nwaneri would only appear on the stat sheet once, racking up two total tackles and a sack in Mizzou's blowout win at UMass.
With Nwaneri set to reportedly enter the transfer portal, he will almost likely get calls from big programs all over the country. While there's a slight chance he could just end up returning to Mizzou, that has rather been an exception rather than a norm in the world of college athletics.