Missouri football is waiting to name its starting quarterback. Now, the number of choices facing Eli Drinkwitz and company has increased.
The Tigers’ biggest decision of the offseason isn’t an offseason question anymore.
Missouri football’s starting quarterback, for the second time in three years, will not be decided until at least after the first game of the season. Beau Pribula and Sam Horn, the team announced Wednesday, will each appear against FCS-level Central Arkansas on Thursday, Aug. 28, on Faurot Field.
Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz had the presses on hold for a moment, saying Tuesday during his fall camp wrap-up press availability that the team was going to make a decision known within 24 hours.
That decision ultimately ended up being … that they aren’t ready to commit to one or the other.
“I informed the team this afternoon that both quarterbacks will play in the first game,” Drinkwitz said in a statement Wednesday. “I want to see them in a game-day situation to make a final determination.”
The tea leaves, looking back, did seem to tip off that possibility.
Drinkwitz hasn’t let on anything other than that he believes there has been minimal separation between the two primary contenders.
Even Tuesday, as he at least seemed to mull on the possibility of a final decision, he called the choice something that keeps him at night and rouses him in the morning. He opened camp by saying the day he has to tell one of them they are not the starter will be the hardest thing he does all season.
The head coach said Tuesday that both players are playing at a level he believes can win football games, and that the magnitude of the choice is why the University of Missouri will pay him $9 million this year.
But don’t twist a delay with indecision. The Tigers still very much have a choice to make.
Multiple, in fact.
First: Who starts against UCA on Thursday is a major decision in itself. The team may dance around the gravity of that choice, but let the 2023 quarterback battle between Brady Cook and Horn be your history lesson.
The first one out is the frontrunner. They’re the player with the most pressure sitting on their shoulders. Every snap to their palms and spiral out of their fingers, even against Central Arkansas, has that little bit of added juice.
Does that same pressure exist in a two-, three-, or four-score ballgame? Of course it still matters to the competing quarterbacks. But it’s different when the stakes are all but removed.
That brings us to the next decision facing the MU staff: How long does the starter go?
Will it be like 2023, when Cook wrapped up a win by building a 25-point, first-half lead before Horn came in for little more than a cameo, handoff-heavy appearance in the second half?
Or, will the Tigers do something different?
Like … let them alternate quarters.
Or, even more adventurous, let them alternate series.
Those are all choices facing Drinkwitz, offensive coordinator Kirby Moore and the Mizzou staff. And they are choices they can’t avoid.
If this is a fair fight and as close to 50/50 as the staff have let on, then it's crucial that they both get equal and similar opportunities to lead the offense.
The game will be played, and there will be a Missouri quarterback. Now, we’ll see when they each play and for how long.
In a lot of ways, the decision to let Pribula and Horn duke it out into the season isn’t surprising.
There’s little to lose by letting them both play against Central Arkansas. With all due respect to the Bears from Conway, Arkansas, you won’t find many prognosticators suggesting the game will be competitive after the sun sets over Columbia sometime in the second quarter.
Indeed, it was likely — statement or no statement; defined starter or no defined starter — that Missouri was going to play both the Penn State transfer and the righty pitcher anyway.
There isn’t any correct answer for how to gameplan for Thursday. Ideally, the Tigers get both of them involved while the game still has an ounce of competitiveness. Even then, there might not be a whole lot to glean from a game against a severely overmatched opponent.
But Kansas is coming a game week later, and the intensity will skyrocket as the Border War is revived.
So, it’s up to the Mizzou staff now to figure out how to get the team best prepared and situated for Thursday and beyond.
There aren’t any firm answers. The choices are adding up. And they won't get any easier to make.
“You wish it was easy and that there would be something definitive that you could point at and say, ‘Hey, this is the reason why,’” Drinkwitz said Tuesday. “But that's not going to be the case, so we'll figure it out from there.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou football still has choices to make despite delaying QB decision
Category: General Sports
