2018 Mizzou Rugby

This was a rebuilding year and the coach said so plainly. Fourteen players of the highest caliber had graduated, and Missouri traveled to Ames with eighteen men against an Iowa State side with forty on the sideline, losing 43–0 with five rookies on the pitch — the first defeat to Iowa State since Corwin took over.

The response was immediate: Truman State beaten 53–0 on Old Boys Day, playing the entire second half with fourteen after a red card for a tip-tackle and winning all but three scrums, then Oklahoma State beaten 65–5 in a new kit provided by the St. Louis Bombers.

The spring was wrecked by weather — two practices without snow on the ground between January and March — and by a Spring Break scheduled a week out of step with the rest of the conference. Missouri returned to Manhattan for a sevens tournament with nine players, seven of them forwards, played what Corwin called “Clydesdale 7's” and still won two of five. The last fifteens match of the year, at Muscatine, Iowa, was won 19–14 with a Thomas Whitmer interception and a Morrow conversion in the closing minutes.