The road for Darius Outlaw has been a long one. Coming out of Powder Springs, Georgia, Outlaw was expected to pick up where Corby Jones left off for Mizzou. He was a long quarterback with a good arm and blazing speed. But he sat out the 1999 season as an academic partial-qualifier. Which meant if he graduated by a certain date he could get that year of eligibility back. But the bumps continued for the quarterback. He didn’t make grades in the spring of 2002 and his future on the football team was questionable, at best. But Outlaw got himself eligible over the next summer and returned with a new attitude and new position. Head coach Gary Pinkel asked Outlaw to switch to wide receiver and he did it, though not really sure if he could do it or not. He could. Outlaw caught 46 passes for 552 yards and was second on the team to Justin Gage. But there was another carrot dangling in front of Outlaw’s face. If he could graduate by August of this year, he would get his lost year back, which he did–in December. After all the ups and downs, Outlaw finds himself on the doorstep of being a leader on one of the most explosive offenses in the country—with a college degree already under his belt.
