Beau Bombs: First Mizzou TD of 2025 comes on Beau Pribula’s first pass
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Beau Pribula made about as good a first impression as a college quarterback ever could for Mizzou in Thursday night’s season opener.
The redshirt junior transfer from Penn State arrived at Mizzou with a ton of potential, and he literally flashed that potential right away. On his first drive for the Tigers, throwing his first-ever pass for the Tigers no less, Pribula fired a 51-yard touchdown to Marquis Johnson to give Mizzou a 6-0 lead. The ensuing 2-point conversion failed, so the score stayed 6-0, but in 1 bolt of lightning, Mizzou fans’ expectations for their new quarterback from the Big Ten soared.
Fittingly, the announcers on SEC Network commented right before the TD pass that Pribula had yet to throw a pass on the Tigers’ first drive. Well, that changed in a hurry, as Pribula dropped back, got perfect protection and fired a laser down the middle to a streaking Johnson, who caught the pass in stride just inside the Central Arkansas 10-yard line and sauntered into the end zone.
It was perfection, slightly less than 4 minutes into his Mizzou career.
Making matters more interesting with Pribula’s early TD pass was the apparent leg injury suffered by fellow Mizzou quarterback Sam Horn during the first quarter. The preseason battle for the starting quarterback job was taken into Thursday night’s opener against Central Arkansas, with the 2 set to split snaps.
The Tigers took a 9-0 lead into the second quarter.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
