ARLINGTON, Texas — This fairytale’s hero got his storybook ending.

Cody Schrader — the Division-II transfer turned Missouri walk-on turned starter turned eighth-placed player in Heisman Trophy voting — hustled, bustled, crashed and careened his way through the stout Ohio State defense and into the end zone on the first play of the fourth quarter.

The Tigers were down three points; down three points without even sniffing the scoreboard, moreover.

Missouri offensive coordinator Kirby Moore wanted to call a draw with Missouri in the red zone — seven yards from goal — for the first time of the game, Drinkwitz said postgame.

Drinkwitz disagreed.

“You just knew,” the head coach said postgame, “he wasn't going to be denied.”

Innovative? Maybe not. Schrader’s sensational story ends with him breaking the Tigers’ single-season rushing record, ending the season with 1,627 yards. It’s rarely a bad time to put the ball in his hands.

Effective? Absolutely

Schrader scored, and the No. 9-ranked Tigers flipped the script, dominating the fourth quarter en route to a 14-3 win over No. 7 Ohio State on Friday evening at AT&T Stadium.

Yes, that’s your New Year’s Six Bowl champion, 11-2, cemented-and-then-some top-10 Missouri Tigers.

How about that for Schrader’s send off?

“I couldn't have drawn it up any more perfect,” said Cook, who was named the offensive MVP of the Cotton Bowl. “Yeah, he deserves it. He embodies what our team is and what our values are and how we operate. And man, I mean, he's just — he did it. He did it. He deserves this. He deserves the credit. I mean, I can't say enough about him. I mean, I'm just so proud of that guy. And you know, I hope he's got a smile on his face right now.”

Schrader embodies a lot about this Missouri team — the rag-tag crew more prognosticators had scraping its way into a bowl game rather than finishing the year in Jerry’s World upsetting a college football behemoth.

Drinkwitz calls it a “Wildnerness Brotherhood,” a term he said the team chaplain coined the night before, comparing the Tigers to a “Blueblood brotherhood.”

I.E: Ohio State.

The touchdown-scoring run — and the two that led to Luther Burden III’s win-sealing score about 10 minutes of game time later — were too much for the blue-blood Buckeyes to deal with.

“Kirby (Moore) dialed up that inside zone, he hit it perfectly," Drinkwitz said. "It was his moment, it was his game."

In a game without much offense, he was the spark.

The Tigers had punted eight times in drives before Schrader pummeled into the end zone. The lone exception was a busted Hail Mary attempt to close the first half. Much of Missouri’s 208 total yards to that point had been buoyed by a 49-yard dart to true freshman Marquis Johnson, which put MU inside the 20-yard line for the first time all game.

If the Tigers were ever putting it together, it seemed inevitable that Schrader would be involved.

Burden said he was watching Schrader’s highlights the night before the Cotton Bowl.

Maybe the receiver watched the 321 all-purpose yards the former Truman State tailback tallied to torture Tennessee. Or, maybe, it was the 217 rushing yards that rocked Arkansas.

Perhaps he watched a compilation of the Lutheran South High grad’s eight 100+-yard games.

“I’m like,” Burden said, “that dude is a straight freak.”

Schrader finished the Cotton Bowl with 128 rushing yards and the tide-turning score. That was more than Ohio State’s quarterbacks passed for, and it matched Cook’s production through the air.

He’ll surely declare for the NFL Draft in the coming weeks.

It’s a story no Missouri fan will forget any time soon.

Talk about a happy ending.

“I'm living in an answered prayer, man,” Schrader said.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Fairytale of Schrader: MU running back ends storied career with storybook ending