Eli Drinkwitz comments on Mizzou’s ongoing quarterback competition
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Eli Drinkwitz will need to choose between Beau Pribula and Sam Horn as the Mizzou starting quarterback in 2025. That decision won’t happen before Thursday’s season opener against Central Arkansas. Both Pribula and Horn will play in that game, Drinkwitz revealed on Thursday.
The Tigers’ head coach explained the decision when he met with reporters on Saturday.
“I think they both demonstrate the ability of toughness, preparation, decision-making, accuracy, and leadership in a practice setting. But that doesn’t mean they’ve done it in a game setting for us,” Eli Drinkwitz said, per ABC17’s Nathalie Jones. “And I know both of them have played college football before, but they haven’t played it in this situation before. And so they’ll get to demonstrate all those this week and in a game.”
Pribula is far and away the most experienced of the 2, playing in 24 games at Penn State as Drew Allar’s backup while coming in for designed packages. That allowed him to total 571 yards and 10 touchdowns on 94 carries in 2023 and 2024.
Horn, though, has been with the Mizzou program since signing as a 4-star recruit for the class of 2022. That means he’s much more familiar with Drinkwitz’s offensive system.
Allowing both to play in Thursday’s game against Central Arkansas is “the best course of action” toward making a final decision, Drinkwitz said.
“I felt like both quarterbacks (have) played really well, really since the spring,” he said. “I think they’ve both established a leadership with the team, as evidenced by both being voted captains, and (I) just didn’t feel like I could make a decision without a little bit more information. And I didn’t want to rush the decision.
“I think the decision of the starting quarterback for me, personally, is something that I’m going to have a lot of conviction about.”
Mizzou kicks off its season at 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday on SEC Network.
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Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
