COLUMBIA, Mo. • Dawson Downing walked up to his parents shortly before they left for his official visit at Northwest Missouri State.
“I’m not going,” he told them. “I can play Division I football, so I’m just going to walk on to Missouri and prove it to everyone else.”
“He’s always had the chip on his shoulder and had to prove himself,” Kris Downing said. “He knew he was going to do it and play at this level, so we’re like, ‘All right, let’s go then.’”
That’s what Downing did. The 6-foot, 225-pound running back joined the Missouri football team as a walk-on in 2016, and after a redshirt season he appeared in five games last year and rushed for 121 yards on 20 carries.