Missouri Tigers share these questions with other top college football teams
With the 2025 college football season on the horizon, months of previewing and predicting soon will be in the rearview mirror. Yet games that count toward a team’s record are still more than two weeks away.
At this point in the calendar, preseason storylines surrounding teams, players and coaches have been discussed ad nauseam. Like every team in the country, Mizzou football has its own set of storylines as it aims for its third straight season of at least 10 wins.
Such a feat has never been accomplished in the program’s 134-year history.
But as different as the Tigers are from their peers, they share some similarities. Like a national title contender such as Texas or a bottom feeder such as Purdue, Mizzou will enter the 2025 season grappling with questions other teams are discussing.
Uncertainty at quarterback
Through almost two weeks of fall camp, the Tigers have yet to settle on their top signal caller, and coach Eli Drinkwitz seems content with letting the position battle continue.
“I can’t rush a decision. You’ve got to let the competition play out, and if that has to play out in the first game, it has to play out in the first game,” Drinkwitz told KREF Sports on Thursday. “I’m not in a game of pick ‘em. We’re here to let the best quarterback reveal himself to the team.
“I will say this: College football has changed quite a bit,” Drinkwitz continued. “With us having the access we do to our players, especially with what you see with injuries and all kinds of stuff, you’ve got to have multiple quarterbacks ready. So I don’t actually see it as a negative at all. I see it as a real positive to have two guys who are splitting reps who are getting reps in two-minute situations, in red zone situations.”
Unlike Mizzou, many of college football’s power conference teams have figured out who their starting quarterback will be. But many of those quarterbacks enter the 2025 season lacking game experience.
None of these eight teams in the top 15 of the US LBM Coaches Poll (released Monday) have a starting quarterback with at least one year of starting experience: Texas (No. 1), Ohio State (No. 2), Georgia (No. 4), Notre Dame (No. 5), Oregon (No. 7), Alabama (No. 8), Michigan (No. 14) and Ole Miss (No. 15).
The only quarterback in that group with over 100 career pass attempts is UCLA’s Dante Moore (221). Only two have over 50 career pass attempts: Texas’ Arch Manning (95) and Georgia’s Gunner Stockton (83).
Quarterbacks stepping into newly elevated roles at the power conference level is nothing new. But often those quarterbacks arrived at their new schools with loads of experience. Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia and Kentucky quarterback Zach Calzada combined for seven years of starting experience at different schools before transferring. Blake Shapen started over 20 games at Baylor before transferring to Mississippi State in 2023.
Mizzou quarterback Beau Pribula, who logged 56 pass attempts and 94 rush attempts at Penn State, would be considered a veteran among that group.
Whether it’s Pribula, redshirt junior Sam Horn (eight career pass attempts) or true freshman Matt Zollers starting at quarterback for Mizzou, they won’t be the only QBs facing new kinds of pressure in 2025.
New ways to construct a roster
In recent years, the transfer portal has unlocked new avenues for team-building. Succeeding in high school recruiting is no longer the primary method. With the lack of restrictions in the transfer portal and schools being able to legally pay athletes, a team can field a roster of mostly transfers.
Mizzou brought in 22 players from the portal over the offseason. The new additions were highly touted: Per 247Sports, MU landed the seventh-best transfer class in 2025. From quarterback to punter, a majority of that group has a chance at playing time this fall. But success in the portal isn’t the same as recruiting success, as the Tigers are all the way down at No. 79 for the high school class of 2026.
MU isn’t alone here, as numerous teams that reeled in big fish from the portal haven’t placed as much of an emphasis on high school recruiting. Auburn, Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Nebraska and Oklahoma all rank outside of 247Sports’ top 40 in recruiting for 2026, but they all landed top-20 transfer classes.
Kentucky and Mississippi State haven’t exactly been blue bloods in the 21st century, so the lower recruiting rankings might not be as surprising. But Auburn and Oklahoma have consistently been among the nation’s best in high school recruiting over the past two-plus decades.
Some schools have earned both commitments from elite transfers and high school recruits: LSU, Miami (Florida), Oregon and Texas A&M each rank in 247’s top 12 in 2025 transfers and 2026 high school recruits. Others, like Notre Dame, still pay most of their attention to the high school ranks — the Fighting Irish only welcomed eight transfers this offseason while ranking No. 5 in 247’s 2026 recruiting rankings. Meanwhile, Purdue and West Virginia each brought in over 50 transfers.
From the Fighting Irish to the Mountaineers, team-building strategies in college football have greatly diversified. But one thing is true: This season, there will be plenty of teams whose main personnel is wildly different.
Mississippi State (which travels to Columbia in November) is one of 16 FBS I-A teams that acquired at least 30 transfers this offseason (MSU had 34). Last year, only six teams had at least 30 transfers, and there were only two in 2023.
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