Missouri Spring Football Position Preview: Quarterbacks
After producing its best season in nine years and a win over Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl, Missouri's beeline toward a berth in the 12-team College Football Playoffs begins in the next week and a half or so with spring practice around the corner.
Until then, we will preview the 2024 roster by doing position-by-position previews. First, we’ll look at the quarterbacks.
The starter: A year ago, this was anyone's job.
Brady Cook was on the mend, recovering from surgery to repair his torn labrum in his right shoulder. So, it appeared that Sam Horn would have the edge going into camp, but he sustained a forearm injury playing for the baseball team a couple of days into camp and was limited for the duration of it .
Then, Miami transfer Jake Garcia had only been on campus for around a month when camp started. Nonetheless, it was Garcia and JUCO transfer Dylan Laible taking most of the first and second-team snaps for spring ball.
This time around, there's no mystery. After Cook's impressive 2023 season that molded him into one of the league's better quarterbacks, he's retained the starting spot for this season.
The backups: There's been a shakeup in the quarterback room. Garcia, Laible and former four-star signee Gabarri Johnson have all transferred out, leaving Horn, three-star signee Aidan Glover, Southern transfer walk-on Harold Blood Jr. and walk-on Tommy Lock as the backups.
With the recent news of Horn undergoing Tommy John surgery on a torn UCL, he will be sidelined for 12-15 months.
As for the others, this is a good time for Glover, who is an early enrollee, to grasp the playbook and see where he's at.
Blood, who is the brother of soon-to-be sophomore receiver Daniel Blood, played 10 games for the Jaguars last season and completed 57% of his passes for 1,901 yards, 13 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He also added a rushing touchdown.
So for him and Lock, who hasn’t taken a college snap yet, it’s a chance to step up from the practice squad and get some real reps.
Storyline to watch for: Before the extent of Horn's injury was announced, the question would've been, will the Tigers go to the transfer portal to grab another quarterback?
Now, it's what quarterback will they grab in the portal?
The portal doesn't open until May 1. So, that's about six weeks after the Black and Gold game, but there's no way Eli Drinkwitz goes into fall camp with two scholarship quarterbacks, one of them being a true freshman.
Drinkwitz has had at least four scholarship quarterbacks on the roster in the last couple of seasons. So, does he grab a pair of veteran quarterbacks in the portal? That would be the next question.
If you want to just focus on who is here for spring ball, then the question may be how many reps does Cook get? He's the starter but if he gets injured in any way the season is in jeopardy. Cook, will in all likelihood take almost every single first-team rep during spring ball, but will the Tigers try to tame that workload in any way possible over the next few weeks?
We won't know for a while, and the quarterback position will be what it is until May 1, but for the next month or so, the thought over this position group is who and how many quarterbacks will be joining the team after spring ball.
PowerMizzou's prediction: Cook is the unquestioned starter in the Black and Gold spring game on March 16, as well as in fall camp and for the entire season.
Glover will get plenty of reps as QB2 by default with Blood and Lock sprinkled in there, but after that, expect the Tigers to find a new QB2 and possibly another backup when the portal opens in the spring.
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