51ºÚÁÏ

Perhaps it’s reading too much into one comment, but when Missouri football head coach Eli Drinkwitz dropped a famous John Wooden-ism — be quick but don’t hurry — it told me the starting quarterback competition should extend into the season opener against Central Arkansas.

Following Mizzou’s practice Saturday at Lindenwood University’s Hunter Stadium in St. Charles, an affair Drinkwitz setup to serve as a “mock road game,� Drinkwitz sounded like a man no closer to naming a starting QB than he did at the start of fall camp in Columbia.

Taking Drinkwitz at his word and assuming his comments aren’t an exercise in subterfuge, the lack of separation between and Penn State feels like it warrants seeing how both players lead the offense in a real game situation.

After all, Drinkwitz has repeatedly made his point that he’s not going to feel “pressed� to name a starter by the opener.

“I’m pressed on who is going to reveal themselves as the starting quarterback,� Drinkwitz said. “I think they’re both playing really well from a statistical standpoint — from a touchdown-to-interception ratio, from a completion percentage, from a third-down percentage. I broke it all down (Friday) on our off-day, and it’s remarkable how close it is.�

Sure, you might hear or read Central Arkansas, realize that’s a program from a small conference and assume Mizzou will run through them regardless of quarterback play.

So how is that really doing to delineate anything?

In a different matchup, perhaps it doesn’t help. However, neither Horn nor Pribula has a substantial track record in college games. So there is something to gain from tossing them both in that type of setting.

Combined, they’ve currently got zero starts and fewer than 40 completions in college games. Mizzou passers completed 30 passes in last year’s season opener alone.

I know the coaches create as many game-like situations and scenarios as possible in practices and scrimmages.

Oh, Allen Iverson. Your comments about practice never go out of style. If you don’t know, .

In all seriousness, mimicking game situations is absolutely what every coaching staff strives to do, and they should absolutely attempt to put players in settings as close to a game as feasible.

Well, by extending that thought process, it’s only logical that two quarterbacks with limited game experience should get exposed to an actual game environment. It only makes sense to see how they rise (or falter) in the moment.

How does taking their time with the QB decision line up with Drinkwitz’s stated theme of increased urgency for his team as it approaches the opener?

“If we feel like there’s no clear-cut decision, I’m not going to force a decision,� Drinkwitz said Saturday. “That means that they would both play in the first game, and we’ll evaluate those reps. I don’t feel the pressure like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to make a decision. We’ve got to move on and solidify it.’ That’s not the case with this football team.

“So this team is growing. All of us need urgency to raise our level, because we didn’t start fast enough today. So there’s got to be urgency when you show up to play, but that doesn’t mean I need urgency to make a decision and force the wrong thing to happen. Be quick but don’t hurry.�

There it was at the end, the John Wooden reference.

Drinkwitz also shared that he’s looking at intangibles as a means to elevate one quarterback over the other. He cited things like rallying the team, providing energy and leading in practice even when you’re not running the offense.

Both prospective starters were voted offensive captains, which makes you want to believe they’ve each got leadership qualities.

Which brings us back to the game as an tool to separate them.

If you’re looking to find out if a player provides that “juice� or “spark� or a “shot in the arm� for the offense, what better place to see that than in a game?

If you think about the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl-winning (and Super Bowl MVP) quarterback Jalen Hurts and his rookie season in the NFL, the thing that earned him his chance to take over as the starter was that he showed that he could provide a spark in games.

Hurts wasn’t necessarily polished when he got his first extended playing time in 2020, but he provided an undeniable jolt to a struggling team. That didn’t mean it always looked pretty. It didn’t mean he played flawlessly. But the Eagles offense found a different rhythm with Hurts as a rookie.

They built upon that and gained confidence as a group — and gained confidence in Hurts. It started with him getting a chance to show how he propelled the offense in games.

If Mizzou — a “growing team,� according to Drinkwitz — wants to build toward its best version of itself, it probably needs to view the season opener as an extension of fall camp and use that game setting to gather crucial information about its quarterbacks.

What wisdom might Wooden, the incredibly successful and longtime legendary men’s college basketball at UCLA, apply to this situation?

There happens to be another famous quote attributed to Wooden that fits this situation nicely: “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?�

Evaluating both quarterbacks in the season opener against Central Arkansas would be taking the time to do it right.