‘He’s just Luther’: Mizzou wideout Burden in dual roles as elite player, NIL star (2024)

EAST ST. LOUIS — Seated in tidy rows, a couple hundred kids screamed from the bleachers. They all wore matching white T-shirts with Luther Burden III on them, which is why they were cheering.

The preseason All-American wideout was still a ways away from his high school field, where he held a free youth football camp in late July, just before Missouri’s preseason began. The clamor was a dress rehearsal for when a golf cart ferried Burden from where he waited inside East St. Louis High School and onto the field.

An emcee cued the crowd noise for real once Burden arrived, wearing Off-White suede shoes that cost roughly the same as a credit hour at MU.

Just a few years ago, he was a five-star recruit who set Illinois high school football records for the Flyers, scoring 34 total touchdowns during his senior season. Now, Burden is Mizzou’s first national superstar in the name, image and likeness age of college sports.

That’s the transition, the balance that unfolded over the course of his camp. Burden threw passes to kids and danced in TikTok fashion to Lil Uzi Vert’s “Just Wanna Rock.” He seemed comfortable and genuinely excited.

“One of you guys can be next up,” Burden said his message to kids in East St. Louis is now. “You don’t have to be the most privileged, the most — what’s the word? — guaranteed everything, growing up. I just want to give them hope.”

No fewer than four cameras followed Burden around during the event. An ESPN crew rigged a camera onto a short track for moving shots. And while he played two-hand touch football with campers, his agent was engaged in a conversation about one of his other clients, Louisiana State gymnast-turned-model Olivia “Livvy” Dunne.

Less than a month after, Nautica released an ad for its fall clothing line featuring Burden and Dunne together on a high school football field. Two flavors of Burden-branded potato chips are still popular and expanding into bigger bags. You can use his name as a promo code for 10% off purchases from a football accessory brand.

This is unique. Unprecedented, really, at a school like Missouri. NIL is still new to college sports, something being figured out in real time. Burden, 20, is growing into this million-dollar, endorsem*nt-driven environment.

“He’s a young man who’s really matured into understanding it’s bigger than him,” Mizzou coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “If he’ll use his platform in a positive way, good things will happen.”

That’s where the on-field component comes in — not Luther Burden III, the marketable athlete but Luther Burden III, the wide receiver. That’s who the 11th-ranked Tigers are particularly excited about as the 2024 season begins.

“I got one mindset,” Burden said at Southeastern Conference media days. “My mind’s set on a national championship.”

After posting 1,197 receiving yards and eight touchdowns in 2023, he opened 2024 as one of the favorites to win the Biletnikoff Award, which goes to the nation’s best wide receiver. Burden is also on the fringes of the Heisman Trophy discussion.

Being on the list for the latter honor is “definitely” one of Burden’s goals, too, he said.

“I should be on top of it by the end of the year,” he said.

It’ll take a lot to get him there. DeVonta Smith, the only wideout to win the Heisman since 1991, had 98 receptions, 1,511 receiving yards and 17 touchdown catches on the books when the award was given out in 2020.

To statistically match the Alabama wide receiver, Burden will need to average 134 yards and more than a score per game through Mizzou’s 11 other regular season games.

His first showing of the 2024 campaign was a relatively quiet one, though not for the Tigers’ lack of trying to showcase their star. The first play of Thursday’s season-opening win over Murray State was a jet sweep handoff to Burden. He scored the first touchdown, juking a defender to the ground for a celebratory jaunt into the end zone.

Burden was open over the top of the Racers’ defense at times, but a pass interference call and an incompletion meant that he never cashed in on those opportunities. A trick play looked like it might even have set Burden up to throw the ball, but he fumbled the pitch to him.

It’s no secret that Burden is talented, nor that he’s the focal point of Missouri’s offense. To accentuate his prowess, the team moved him into a slot role last season, which paid dividends. Now, it’ll be working to move him around even more.

“Defenses are always going to try to take away players, so it’s our job to find ways to be creative and work him around the field a little bit,” wide receivers coach Jacob Peeler said.

Burden, for his part, wants to get looks as the Tigers’ punt returner — which it seems he will be at least some of the time, based on the opener.

“I feel like I could take a huge step in that aspect to help us win more games,” he said.

‘He checks everything off the list’

Step back, for a moment, and consider Burden’s talent. Set aside the NIL deals, the awards discourse and the video game rating that tried to quantify his skills.

He’s very good. That’s undeniable — or at least agreed upon — at this stage of his career. But how did that become the case? Why is Burden as good as he is?

The Post-Dispatch asked that of Mizzou coaches and players, on both offense and defense, to understand the football component of the program’s new-age star. NIL deals might be private, but skill is displayed in the public domain.

“Competitive character,” Peeler said. “Whether it’s playing dodgeball or putt-putt, the kid loves to win. He loves the process that it takes to win. But I think the biggest thing that he does so well is once he gets the ball in his hands, his refusal to be tackled. … Getting the ball in his hands and (he becomes) kind of an old-school running back once he gets it. It’s a scorer’s mentality. It’s a guy that wants to get in the end zone.

“Playmaker,” second-year wide receiver Joshua Manning said. “He’s never afraid of the big moments. Yeah, he’s built for the big moments.”

“His twitchiness, his route-running, his yards after the catch,” said wideout Daniel Blood. “You see it work in a game every game, so you put that in your game and see how you can use it.”

“Just turn on the tape — you can see it yourself,” receiver Mekhi Miller said. “He’s a great teammate, great athlete. He goes out there and puts in the work. How you practice is how you play, and whatever he does in practice, he goes out there and shows in the game — sometimes he does even more practice that he doesn’t do in the game.”

“A lot,” cornerback Dreyden Norwood said. “Luther is just a great player all around and he makes us better, guarding him.”

“Everything,” corner Toriano Pride Jr., who played with Burden at East St. Louis, said. “He checks everything off the list. His catching, his yards after the catch, his routes, his mentality. Whenever he gets into pads, he gets in a different mode. Not a lot of people can stop it.”

But it was another St. Louis-area wide receiver who struggled the most with articulating what makes Burden good and made clear how unique of a talent, of a star, Mizzou has on its hands.

“Hmm. Just — I don’t know,” Mookie Cooper said. “He’s just got something different. I don’t know. He could be chilling, calm, quiet and then go make a crazy catch. I don’t know. He can do whatever — you can’t put too many words on it. I don’t know. He’s just Luther.”