Things had always been easy for Drew Lock.
He was a natural athlete, recruited to play in college in two sports. He had a stable, supporting family, had never been in trouble off the field and was going to be the next big thing as the quarterback of his home state school.
But in 2015, Lock was faced with something he'd never seen before: Adversity.
In part three of our five-part series with Lock, we look back at a freshman season in which disaster struck, doubt crept in and the former golden boy was left having to answer some hard questions about his future.
PART THREE: DAYS LIKE THESE
Everyone seems to have a song with a link to their life. For Missouri quarterback Drew Lock, it’s Jason Aldean’s “Days Like These.”
If you wanted a soundtrack for Lock’s first season of college football, though, John Lennon’s “Nobody Told Me” would be a more appropriate choice. Because nobody told Drew Lock there would be days like 2015.
He was a member of the prestigious 2014 Elite 11 quarterback camp, a high school superstar from Lee’s Summit, Mo., with a rocket right arm and an advanced ability to run an offense.
“Everyone could see right away that he was going to be something special,” said Connor McGovern, a senior offensive lineman during Lock’s freshman season and current member of the Denver Broncos.
The only things standing in the way of him starting as a freshman was a possible redshirt and a junior returning starter named Maty Mauk.
Lock had enormous potential, but Mauk had the edge in experience. It’s difficult dislodging a player who took his team to the SEC championship game the year before.
“Drew knew he was the best quarterback on the roster,” recalled current MU coach Barry Odom, who was the Tigers' defensive coordinator in 2015. “But he needed to adjust to the workload of college football.”
Lock described the first half of his freshman season as being in a “cloud” and said he wasn't putting in enough work to be successful. Meanwhile, Mauk was enjoying college a little too much. His behavior was unpredictable and his play inconsistent. Gary Pinkel, in his final season as MU’s coach, made a big decision: Lock wouldn’t start, but he would see action in each of Missouri’s first four games.
“I still have regrets about pulling the redshirt, but we needed him,” Pinkel said.
