The Missouri football roster in 2022 will look drastically different than a season ago. Eli Drinkwitz and his staff have added a whopping 34 scholarship newcomers to the team since last season ended, thus turning over more than one-third of the roster. Nineteen of those newcomers arrived on campus earlier this month to begin summer conditioning.
As we continue to count down the days to fall camp, PowerMizzou is going to profile each of those 20 newcomers who have arrived since the end of spring practices in order to help fans get to know all the new faces on the roster. Today, we take a look at perhaps the highest-profile of all the newcomers: four-star quarterback Sam Horn.
Position: QB
Height: 6-4
Weight: 205
Year: Freshman
Last School: Collins Hill (Ga.) high school
Missouri fans have been buzzing about what the offense might look like with Horn behind center since he somewhat surprisingly curtailed his recruitment early and committed to the Tigers in February of 2021. Now, the No. 72 prospect in the country is on campus — but for how long?
It’s no secret at this point that Horn is also an impressive baseball prospect, and he will almost certainly hear his name called at some point during next month’s MLB Draft. The question is whether a team will draft him high enough (or, more accurately, offer him a large enough signing bonus) to forego his college football career and jump straight into professional baseball. The odds of that seem slim, but it’s a possibility Drinkwitz has continued to acknowledge.
"I'm not naive to the fact that Sam is going to have a difficult choice in front of him in July," Drinkwitz said earlier this month. "We believe that he's got a great future here as both a football player and a baseball player. Mizzou football and baseball fans, that's what we're pushing him on. But I also realize the fact that he could choose to pursue a career in the Major Leagues."
Assuming Horn does stick with his plan to play at Mizzou, it might not be very long before fans get a chance to see him in game action. Drinkwitz has been resolute that Horn will get a chance to compete for the starting quarterback job prior to Missouri’s Sept. 1 season opener. While it’s rare for a true freshman, especially one who wasn’t on campus for spring practice, to start the first game of his college career, given the lack of proven options elsewhere in the Tiger quarterback room, we’re not entirely discounting Horn’s chances.
Drinkwitz and his staff are so high on Horn because of the ridiculous numbers he put up at Collins Hill. As a senior, he completed 70.2 percent of his passes, throwing for 3,986 yards, 37 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He also rushed for 621 yards and seven scores. He became one of just eight quarterbacks ever in the state of Georgia to throw for more than 10,000 yards in his high school career. Horn also led the Eagles to a 15-0 record and Class 7A state championship. The team suffered its lone loss of the season in a “national championship” matchup against Washington’s Graham-Kapowsin.
Even if Horn doesn’t start behind center when Missouri hosts Louisiana Tech, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him get some game action next season. It’s become clear that Drinkwitz envisions Horn as the future signal-caller of the Tiger offense — as long as he remains on campus.
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