Quick.

Think of your favorite Dreyden Norwood play in a Missouri football jersey.

Three, two, one …

Time’s up.

Chances are some of you said his pick against Boston College in Week 3 this season. Some of you might have gone all the way back to his fourth-quarter interception to send South Carolina off its home field with a loss in 2022, which is MU cornerbacks coach Al Pogue’s choice. That play was a “clinic tape moment,” Pogue said, because Norwood jams his receiver mid route, steps up and anticipates the underthrown ball. Picture perfect.

There’s a good shot some of you made it this far and didn’t pull an answer. That’s fine. That’s actually a lot of what it’s meant to look like.

You might not have noticed the cornerback, especially this season in his first year as a full-time starter, because he hasn’t given you much reason to notice him. Opposing offenses just aren’t really risking his side of the field.

“He's not seen that many targets,” Pogue said. “He tends to play good, tight coverage. He seems to always be in position. … It’s bad for him statistically, but good for us as a defense.”

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Norwood is quietly having a strong season at a position the Tigers (4-0, 1-0 SEC) very much needed somebody to step up. He’s been out on the field for 181 of the Tigers’ defensive snaps, which is second-most on the defense, taking over from a pair of NFL draftees in Ennis Rakestraw Jr. and Kris Abrams-Draine.

So far, he’s made the transition smooth.

According to PFF, excluding a seemingly erroneous attribution to the corner on one chunk play versus Boston College, he has been targeted eight times, allowing four catches for a total of just eight yards.

“I think all the valuable experience that he got from playing in place of Ennis Rakestraw when went down — it showed up during the spring,” Pogue said. “That confidence of, ‘I’m up next. and I’ve got some big shoes to fill.’ I think he embraced that.”

The cornerback has quietly been going about his business.

That’s not a surprise to those who know him. Quiet action has long been his forte.

“That’s the thing that you love about him. He’s about his business,” his high school defensive coordinator Felix Curry said. … “He's a coach's dream. He's one of those kids that's a high profile athlete without all the antics.”

Missouri football corner Dreyden Norwood’s two-way days

Before he committed out of Northside High School in Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Texas A&M (4-1, 2-0) — where Mizzou travels this upcoming Saturday for a game on Kyle Field that will air at 11 a.m. on ABC — Norwood was the high school’s two-way star, playing both quarterback and DB.

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Curry, now the head coach and formerly Norwood’s defensive coordinator, called him “cat quick” and an elite man-to-man defender. Then-Northside assistant coach Rusty Bush said, like any top high school player, that the Grizzlies just had to have him on the field all the time, ergo the choice to put him under center.

But moreover …

“As good of a player as he is,” Curry said, “his upbringing and his character is probably two times that.”

Norwood came from a line of coaches and educators. His grandfather was a revered school principal in the Fort Smith area. Of everyone he could have chosen, Bush sent his fifth-grade son to Norwood’s father for his first bout of coaching because he trusted his ability to teach and teach him right.

Dreyden’s older cousin, Tre Norwood, played both quarterback and defensive back for the high school. He went on to Oklahoma and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2021.

There wasn’t any coattail riding from his cousin’s successes. Curry said it was immediately clear the talent Norwood had, but that the player understood “the development” side of the game, and wanted to be good at that, too.

Dreyden Norwood did that in his typical, low-key manner.

“What Dreyden tried to do is be Dreyden,” Bush said. “He didn't go try to be Tre. He was going to go be Dreyden. He had his own personality, he had his own work ethic. He had his own path that he wanted to lay, and that was very important to him.”

Being Dreyden worked out pretty well for him.

Like his older cousin, Dreyden Norwood went to work with local trainer Yusuf Holloway, who owns YuTrain Fitness gym in Fort Smith. The pair still spend offseasons working together.

Tre Norwood, Holloway said, was loud and boisterous before and in-between sessions.

Dreyden Norwood? The “complete opposite.”

“He comes in, he's the same. He throws his cleats on, he warms up, we go to work. He doesn’t do much talking,” Holloway said. “Not much talking. There's not much demeanor change. Dreyden could give up four touchdowns and he could get four interceptions, and he'd be the same person.”

That explains some of his patience.

His path in the game has taken him to College Station, where he left after his freshman season with two appearances. At Mizzou, he had to wait behind Rakestraw, now with the Detroit Lions, and Abrams-Draine, now with the Denver Broncos. He stayed the course for much of two seasons before getting his starting opportunity when injuries struck the position last year.

After starting in MU’s Cotton Bowl win, the job — and the big expectations that came with it — became his.

Norwood relishing CB1 duties

Pogue and new Mizzou defensive coordinator Corey Battoon both dropped Norwood’s name in the spring as among Mizzou’s most improved players.

That spring evaluation has tracked.

Remember: eight targets; four receptions allowed; eight yards allowed.

The meat of Missouri’s schedule is still to come, and the Tigers still have secondary-wide coverage busts to take off tape.

Pogue says he pushes Norwood a little bit harder than most. The cornerback has goals, and his temperament lets the coach know can give him more than most.

“He's a mild-mannered kid,” Pogue said, “but more importantly, most people don't know — Dre is ultra-competitive now. … He doesn't back down from challenges.”

Pogue has seen him take leaps and bounds as a press-man corner, which he says is critical in the SEC. He’s seen him put on “positive body weight” this season to help with that, part of his work with Holloway.

The coach challenged him to up his football IQ. Well, Mizzou wide receiver Theo Wease Jr. said he thinks Norwood played receiver at some point, he reads routes and timing so well. Not quite, but not far off for Norwood, the former QB.

Pogue has noticed an “antic” or two slip into his post-play repertoire. If the ball travels — and it hasn’t very often — his way, you might notice a flex or a shoulder roll once it goes incomplete.

He’s still, more often than not, the “composed kid that handled his business” that Curry saw all those years ago.

But don’t let that fool you.

“He’s really quiet; big smile on his face,” Pogue said. “It's deceptive. Because when he's out on the field, he's really competitive.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How Missouri football corner Dreyden Norwood developed into standout starter