10/22/2022 football Edit

Commentary: Sam Horn is the future, but is he the present?

Gabe DeArmond • PowerMizzou

Publisher

Gabe has covered the Tigers for PowerMizzou.com since August of 2003 and been the site's publisher since 2006.

Say it with me, Mizzou fans: Thank God for Vanderbilt.

Let’s be clear: Missouri would not have beaten any other team in the Southeastern Conference on Saturday. Wouldn’t have beaten many in Power Five. But fortunately for the play to the level of their competition Tigers, it was the Commodores standing on the other sideline in an even more boring than it sounds 17-14 win. Had Vanderbilt found one more play—or gotten a more generous spot on fourth and one with just more than a minute left—the Tigers would have replaced the Commodores as the team with the nation’s longest losing streak to other Power Five competition. Missouri broke its own streak at five—just more than 11 months after its last Power Five win—while extending Vandy’s to 28.

The problem here is offensive. Not as in the game being offense, though it was. But as in Missouri’s offense. The Tiger defense finally figured out a way to win a close game: Give up one touchdown to the opponent instead of two. But it got virtually no help from the offense and absolutely no help after halftime.

Missouri led 17-0 at halftime, mostly thanks to Luther Burden and an awful throw from Vanderbilt quarterback AJ Swann that was intercepted by Jaylon Carlies in the end zone. In the final 30 minutes, let’s count the atrocities:

Missouri had 76 yards of offense. Total.

Missouri averaged 2.5 yards per play.

Brady Cook was sacked and fumbled for the first Vanderbilt touchdown.

Nate Peat fumbled on the Vandy 20.

Harrison Mevis missed a 36-yard field goal.

Missouri had three scoring drives that covered 24 plays and 223 yards in the first half. On its other nine drives before the game-ending kneel downs, it piled up a grand total of 99 yards and turned the ball over three times.

So I can hear you already. “How are you ten paragraphs into your column and you haven’t talked about the need to change quarterbacks yet?”

Cook threw for 211 yards, but just 16 in a second half in which Missouri was shut out by Vanderbilt (USA Today)

I hear you. I promise I do. And I understand the frustration.

There was a plan to play Sam Horn on Saturday.

“I thought at 17-0 we were going to potentially get a couple of scores in the third quarter and then you know, have a chance to play him,” head coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “I think the best laid plans of mice and men kind of played out there.”

Drinkwitz said the staff talked about playing Horn earlier in the game, but when Cook led the Tigers to a 14-0 lead, he earned the right to stay in the game. Then the third quarter played out the way it did and Missouri’s four-star freshman spent this game exactly the way he has spent the previous six: Wearing a red baseball cap and a headset watching Missouri’s offense inch its way to 17 points against the worst Power Five defense in college football.

Should Horn have played today? When would you do it? Missouri won this game 17-14. There is no guarantee that a freshman who has never been on the field isn’t going to make a mistake. In fact, you probably count on him making one. Missouri was one more mistake away from losing this game. Not really the ideal time to try something out for the hell of it.

Should he play going forward? He probably should. But he should have played against Abilene Christian and couldn’t. He should have played against Vanderbilt and couldn’t. At this point, he definitely shouldn’t play in more than four games because when you’re this close to retaining a redshirt, you might as well go ahead and do it.

And would it solve Missouri’s problems? It might solve some of them. But the offensive line is a sieve without any obvious solutions. Missouri’s margin for error—both within games and in the quest to win six of them—is so thin it basically doesn’t exist.

Horn was supposed to play Saturday, but never got off the sideline. (Gabe DeArmond)

I know what you want. You want somebody different. You want to unwrap the new toy, the one with four shiny stars who has the physical appearance of an NFL quarterback and the right arm that can throw a 95-mph fastball. And maybe you should get him. But the main reason most want him is simply this: They believe it can’t possibly be worse.

You know the last time everybody believed it couldn’t possibly be worse? About a year ago when we were watching Connor Bazelak limp up and down the field as Missouri’s offense looked barely functional at times on the way to a 6-7 record. But at least that offense could run the ball most of the time. This one can’t even do that.

What you’re saying if you believe Horn should take over is that you simply don’t trust that the coach is playing the right quarterback. And you know what? Maybe you’re right. I’m not arguing against a quarterback change. I just don’t know if a quarterback change would fix what’s wrong with this offense. Because I think it needs about four more offensive linemen. I think it needs a tight end that can do something other take up space and get in some light cardio a few days a week in the passing game.

In other words, if Sam Horn plays, even if Sam Horn starts, I won’t argue against it. I just see a team that has to have its defense be damn near perfect every single week to have a prayer to win a game. Hell, it was perfect except for one play on Saturday and still almost got beat by a team that hasn’t won an SEC game in three full years. Sam Horn would have to be Superman and our Lord and Savior rolled into one to fix that.

We’ll probably find out at some point. Horn is likely to see the field a little bit sometime soon. He may take over as the starter once a bowl game is off the table, which I expect to be with one game left to play on Black Friday. We might find out sooner than that.

“Crud, I mean the way Brady’s getting hit right now, like, we got to be ready,” Drinkwitz said. “I mean, we're not going to survive at quarterback get free shots like that. We got to fix it in protection.

“That crap’s just unfair.”

That’s the coach’s word, not mine. It adequately describes the majority of what we’ve seen from the Missouri offense this season. Maybe a different quarterback fixes it. Maybe it at least dresses it up a little bit and makes it more palatable. Maybe not.

This program, and whether Eli Drinkwitz gets to continue to lead it, rests heavily on the shoulders of Horn. But those answers are probably still a season away, when we get to once again find out if it can possibly be worse than what we’re watching.