COLUMBIA - When Daniel Ellinger finished his senior season with the Jefferson City Jays, college football was not in his plans.
He was a captain of the team in 2015 and was the offensive MVP with 40 receptions for 800 yards and nine touchdowns his senior year as well as Class 6 second team all-state honors and was an all-district selection in 2013, '14 and '15.
That drew offers from Missouri State and Southeast Missouri State, and interest from Georgetown and Missouri, but Ellinger quit talking to coaches at the end of the season.
During the spring, though, he had a change of heart. Ellinger missed football, and was lucky the window of opportunity had not completely passed him by. Andy Hill, then Missouri's wide receivers coach, and A.J. Ofodile, then the recruiting coordinator, asked him if he would consider walking on to play for the Tigers.
It helped he grew up a fan of Missouri and carried hopes of suiting up in black and gold with him throughout high school, but the timing was also right: Ellinger had started to miss football, and it wasn't hard to sway him.
"It's a dream come true, to be honest with you," Ellinger said. "I couldn't ask for anything more. It's been great. Experience of a lifetime."
It was a dream and an experience that almost didn't come to pass. But Ellinger's physical tools, and the program that helped hone those tools, carried some added weight with coaches Hill and Ofodile, who have both been involved in Mid-Missouri football in the past.
Both mentioned former Jays coach Ted LePage's praise of Ellinger and the strength of the Jefferson City football program under LePage's watch as a factor in the renewed pursuit of Ellinger late in the recruiting cycle.
"A kid that talented should be playing football somewhere," Ofodile said. "With him being available, when you're looking to make additions to your roster, he's the prime kid that you want. Local, right up the road, comes from one of the better programs in the state. He's been coached well, so you knew he'd know how to be a great teammate, how to work through a program and the rigors of all that, so he was the perfect kid. Great ability, great character, exactly what you want."
Listed at 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, Ellinger is one of the bigger wideouts in the program, and his height was specifically cited by Hill as a reason he's been able to help the team. Now entering his redshirt sophomore season, Ellinger has experience, too: last season, he played against Missouri State - where he could have played for head coach Dave Steckel - Idaho, Connecticut, Florida and Tennessee.
"I think my experience is a little different (than other walk-ons) just because I have played and traveled for every game last year," Ellinger said.
He and Emanuel Hall lived together during the summer, and Ellinger said Hall and Nate Brown have been his biggest influences and closest friends in the wide receiver room since he got to Missouri. Brown and Hall were both starting receivers on the depth chart released at the start of fall camp.
Ellinger has also enjoyed and benefited from not only their experience, but also the NFL experience of Ofodile and offensive coordinator Derek Dooley, who took over in January.
Still, there is room for growth. Ellinger has yet to catch a pass in a game, and ask him about his memorable moment the last time he was on the field, in the Spring Game.
"Dropping a touchdown, I'm not going to lie," he said with a smile. "That's been in my head ever since that point."