Meet the “big” transfer of defensive tackle Chris McClellan from Missouri Football
Owasso High always made sure that the first person sent off the team bus before games was always the same person.
I’m Chris McClellan.
There is a very simple reason for this.
McClellan, a freshman football player from Missouri who plays defensive tackle, is now 6-foot-3 and 315 pounds. He wasn’t much smaller when he transferred to Owasso, a high school north of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for his senior year.
Put yourself in the shoes of the coaching staff. Who do you want your opponent to see first?
“(It’s like) a giant swarming a baby,” then-Owasso defensive coordinator Antonio Graham told the Tribune. … “No matter what happens, we want to make sure those guys see (McClellan) first, so make sure you sit up front so you can get off the bus first.”
“We just thought it would be intimidating, and then the way he played on the field was even more intimidating.”
McClellan was also a big win for Mizzou last December when he transferred SEC schools to the Tigers after two seasons at Florida.
Because he could play an important role in Columbia.
Mizzou has little experience returning top-level players on the interior of its defensive line. Of the four players who made up Missouri’s main rotation in 2023 – Kristian Williams, Jayden Jernigan, Realus George Jr. and Josh Landry – only Williams returns.
The Tigers have two homegrown talents in Jalen Marshall and Marquis Gracial who are close to cracking the second team, but the pair have only five college appearances between them. Mizzou restocked in the offseason with three transfer tackles: McClellan, Sterling Webb from New Mexico State and Eddie Kelly from Georgia Tech.
Of those three, it’s the former Gator who is most likely to be in the starting lineup alongside Williams when Missouri opens its 2024 season at home against Murray State on Thursday, Aug. 29 – a season that brings College Football Playoff ambitions to Columbia with the expanded 12-team format.
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“He’s a big athlete who moves extremely well,” MU interior defensive line coach Al Davis said during spring camp. “The style of defense is a little different (than Florida’s), so he’s going to have to get used to his changed stance and play out of single-gap plays a little more. … His movement skills are great. He’s got a few things he still needs to work on, but it’s good to have him around because we’re trying to replace a lot of depth.”
Good news for Mizzou: He has shown in the past that he can adapt quickly.
Graham, now head coach at Owasso, immediately recognized the potential of this promising talent.
After McClellan transferred to Owasso to face tougher opponents in his final high school season (from Class 5A to 6A), the tackle immediately showed he had what it takes.
He was “massive,” as current Owasso assistant head coach Asa Poteete, who primarily coaches tight ends, put it. His size is a clear and obvious advantage right out of the gate. But McClellan was also quick off the mark and already an accomplished run-stopper. There were no big questions as to why he had already received a slew of power conference offers.
“To be as big as he is and to be able to move the way he does, that kind of sets you apart,” Poteete said. … “I mean, when you coach at this level, you see a lot of big kids. Not necessarily as big as Chris, but you see a lot of kids with decent size. But when you see them that big and then they can move the way he does? I mean, you just know, ‘Hey, this kid is different.’
“I just didn’t know of creatures like that at his age,” Graham said. “I didn’t know there were these guys in the Tulsa area.”
So that was the challenge.
Graham asked McClellan: What can Owasso do for you?
The lineman’s answer was simple. He wanted to prepare for college, Graham said.
The first part was to get the lineman used to a more advanced scheme.
Graham said McClellan was comfortable relying on his size at his previous school, and now he’ll need to show some versatility against the top players on the Northern Oklahoma preps scene and other DI prospects.
Blankenship was the former head coach of the University of Tulsa. The team had several former college coaches and some former NFL players on the staff, including former All-American Levy Adcock of Oklahoma State, who was McClellan’s position coach.
That means he was in experienced hands when it came to learning the intricacies of recognizing different pass defenses or understanding what the offensive line is doing.
The second part of Graham’s offer to McClellan: To make him more than just the best player on every field he visits.
Graham saw that he was naturally fast and was aware that he could rush toward the passer, but when McClellan took the next step, he needed more.
“I think when he came here he wasn’t fully aware of his abilities,” Graham said. “He wasn’t used to using his hands. He was just trying to intimidate people.”
Some of these habits stuck with him in the early stages of his final season.
Then suddenly it happened.
Week 4 of McClellan’s senior season arrived and Owasso faced local rival Broken Arrow High. Up to this point in the year, there had been some “hesitant” performances. McClellan, Graham said, had a tendency to “think too much.”
Graham said the mission for this game was to make sure the opposing offensive linemen knew McClellan’s name by the end of the day.
“He got his first sack against a high-level tackle, … and that’s when we realized, ‘OK, he’s finally got it,'” Graham said. … “When we saw that, we thought, ‘OK, this kid is going to get it done.'”
From then on, McClellan was the benchmark for Owasso’s run to the state championship game.
If Poteete’s tight ends and linemen could defeat the defensive lineman, it meant they were “doing something right” and the practice was considered successful.
McClellan had the natural wingspan, Poteeet said, to make him difficult to block. As the season went on, he began to develop the ability to use his hands — swimming motions, swiping motions — in the way Graham had worked on.
He still had the natural size to “run over” kids, but the lineman became more than just a bulldozer. McClellan became a master at zone blocking. Graham often had him play defensive end as he learned how to get out of the way. Poteete even put him on the field as a tight end, and he caught a pass on third-and-2 for nine yards while, yes, swimmingly clearing some kids before a group of three guys brought him down.
“You could see how everything improved,” Graham said. “Chris was dominant in the playoffs.”
McClellan then spent two seasons at Florida, transferring to the Swamp after offers from Oklahoma, Alabama and Ohio State. As a Gator, he played in all 25 games Florida played during his time there and recorded 46 tackles, including two sacks.
So why give up on Gainesville? Graham asked him the same question, he said. He was the top recruit from Oklahoma in his class and Florida was a good choice at the time.
Blankenship is friends with Missouri special assistant to head coach Rick Jones, according to Graham, who he said believes the combination of relationships and similar “ethics” between MU and Owasso’s coaching staff are important factors. He said McClellan told him Mizzou just “got it done.”
McClellan announced his transfer to Missouri days before the Tigers won the Cotton Bowl, which capped an 11-2 season last year. The defensive tackle played frequently with the first team during his first spring camp in Columbia.
And he did some overtime.
During spring break in Missouri, Graham looked out his office window at the football field in Owasso.
On this weekday morning, students were milling around the school grounds. It was 10:30 a.m. and classes had started.
McClellan was also there, running repetitions across the field.
The new MU defensive tackle is part of a position group that is likely one of the Tigers’ biggest question marks heading into a great season due to the lack of returnees. McClellan, as his new position coach mentioned, will have to learn a whole new system and scheme to prepare.
So McClellan went back to work at home.
“A lot of kids think you just have to go out and do it, but people don’t see that Chris is here on vacation. He’s supposed to be on vacation, but he works up here at the high school. He’s running here by himself,” Graham said… “I look out there on the football field… and he’s running 110 miles by himself. I’m just thinking, ‘This is awesome.'”
“He’s everything I expected him to be, if not more,” Graham added. “He’s grown. … The kid is always working. That’s the cool thing about it – you see his hard work actually pay off.”
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