A silky-smooth, powerful and deceptively fast tailback, West became one of Mizzou’s all-time bests in the backfield and helped lead MU football back to the winners circle in 1997 and ’98. A native of Moberly, Missouri, he ended his career ranked No. 2 on the Tigers’ career rushing chart, with 2,954 yards. If bowl stats were counted in career totals when he played, he would have left as MU’s career leader in the category (had 229 combined yards in two bowl games). He became MU’s alltime leader for all-purpose yards in a career (3,822), season (1,621 in 1998) and game (333 vs. Kansas in 1998). West was named a first-team all-American at tailback (Football News, The Sporting News) as a senior in 1998, and helped lead Mizzou to an 8-4 season and a win over West Virginia in the Insight.com Bowl – MU's first bowl win since 1981. He rushed for 125 yards in the bowl victory. He also ended a 12-year drought by becoming MU’s first all-American since John Clay in 1986 and was the first Mizzou running back to be named all-American since Bob Steuber in 1942. In 1998 West ranked fifth in the nation in rushing with an MU single-season record 1,578 yards and 17 touchdowns. His 18 total TDs that year stood as the single-season record until 2003. He had two of the top three single-game rushing days in school history with a record 319-yard, two-TD outing against Kansas in 1998, and later added a 252-yard game at Iowa State. The previous record for rushing yards in a game was 240. He was a semi-finalist for the prestigious Doak Walker Award in 1998 and played in the Senior Bowl following his senior season. He was an SEC Legends honoree in 2018 and was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2021.
