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Drew Lock grew up as a fan of the team that he now runs. He was good enough to play elsewhere and as a teenager, he let his mind wander from time to time to other contenders, but he always came back to his initial choice. It will always be Missouri for the kid of 6 "4" with a special arm and pocket presence that will be almost as impressive.
We have all read the story of the "highly promoted recruiter who stayed home", but not so often in Missouri, where only seven times since 2000, the best hopes of the state have been entrusted to the Tigers. Lock, a Columbia native who played high school ball at Lee's Summit outside of Kansas City, is the most recent example.
The quarterback who was Missouri's first rookie in 2015 is the son of a former Tigers forward. Andy Lock played in some of the leanest years of the program, in the middle of the 13 seasons Missouri had not played in a league game with three wins a year on average. Intended to be a fan of a historically horrendous program, Drew Lock is at least born at the right time: 1996, the year Missouri joined the all-new Big 12. He became a football fan while Chase Daniel led the Tigers to their only No. 1 in the ephemeral week standings in 2007, Jeremy Maclin saw his theatrical performances at the catcher and a steady stream of defensive linemen heading for the NFL. He saw Gary Pinkel take the Tigers from an eternal doormat to two consecutive SEC East crowns en route to becoming the most winning coach in the history of Missouri.
And so, it would not have been too much for Lock to have imagined this season, in which he is the main quarterback of a SEC team (except a disaster), with an outside shot at the Heisman Trophy, gaining ground. as a potential first choice in the NFL project next spring. That is, it would not have been too much to predict that. four years ago. In 2015, Lock's timing has expired.
A fatalist (and there are many among the fans) might say that a kind of nightmare was happening, and Lock arrived on campus in time for the worst Missouri football moment in the last century. As a rookie, the quarter saw Pinkel, the coach he dreamed of playing, retire because of a cancer diagnosis, a few days after his team accepted a boycott of football activities and nearly lost a match. Mizzou football has become the most polarizing subject of the sport: a crusade for good, an uncontrollable team, a coach who cares for something more, a coach who has let his players derail a season.
Off the field, there was no gray area. On the pitch, at the start of November, when everything changed, Lock was 1 to 4 as a starter in a season he probably should not have started after his predecessor, Maty Mauk, was suspended on the way to a permanent dismissal. In the coming years, the quarterback will go through three offensive coordinators. Missouri missed the bowl games in their first two years and started their 1-5 junior season, but here they are, having used an epic turnaround in 2017 to claim the SEC's best quarterback title. , now aged 3 to 0 as a senior inside a home game against Georgia, which is the biggest step of his career.
"I think the scars are cool," says Justin Hoover, Lock's private instructor for six years. "I think he likes them. It was a child who had not had to face a lot of adversity … and then suddenly, he was knocked down. For me, that's what counts in his career. He went through things and people do not give him enough credit for how he handled everything.
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Lock's years at Lee High School in Missouri were, as Hoover notes, almost free of adversity. The biggest decision the teenager had to make was between football and basketball. two sport he was talented enough to have played at the next level. Lock, a four-star rookie, arrived in Missouri in the summer of 2015 – still claiming he wanted to go to college, but fully engaged in quarterbacks – in the wake of the 11-3 campaign. Tigers in 14 ". Having played (and lost) the SEC championship game for the second year in a row last fall, the Tigers looked like a rising team. Entering his fourth season in the conference, Missouri had found his legs quickly, although in the SEC East weaker, and even though he had remained at a lower level at the top of the West, he seemed to belong.
The trajectory of the young quarterback could have been as fast as his career in high school. Former incumbent Maty Mauk had problems off the field, but in 2015, it seemed like Lock would have at least his first year set up as a backup. False. Mauk was suspended at the end of September and was eliminated for the remainder of the season in one of Pinkel's final moves as Missouri head coach in November.
"It was not easy when I got here," says Lock. "This season has been a whirlwind. You think you have a coach who will stay with you for at least four years. I grew up with coach Pinkel as a man. And then for [the protest and his retirement] happen just before we go on the road to go to K.C., play Arrowhead for the first time [a 20–16 win over BYU]It was a lot.
Lock's first season came to an end with the Tigers' win for the second time only since 2005. They only won one SEC contest and in 2016 things did not really improve: under the new coach and former defensive coordinator Barry Odom 4-8. Rooted as a starter, Lock pitched for 3399 yards and 23 touchdowns, but Missouri was a team without an identity. Known for so many years as "D Line Zou", a nod to the seven linemen and defensive defensemen, the program was chosen in the first two rounds of the NFL draft from 2009 to 2015. promote Odom, but Odom teams struggled defensively while Lock and the attack have quietly put points. The Tigers seemed lost, but the messy opening of season 17 should have given them some idea of their success. Against Missouri State, an FCS team that would end 3-8, Missouri scored 72 points and allowed 43 points. These Tigers were not going to compete with the heavyweights because of their defense and they lost five games in a row, they looked like a team that may not have competed at all – a berth was out of the question and a conference win seemed difficult.
But in this fifth loss, on the road to fourth place in Georgia, Lock sent 253 yards, four touchdowns and an interception against a top-ten defense. The quarterback played only six touchdowns in his four last games, but that day, something has changed. Lock and the Tigers were about to go to a race that would define the quarter's college career.
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This trip to Athens, nearly a year ago, was Lock's last match against a ranked opponent. On Saturday, the same Bulldogs, now ranked No. 2, enter Colombia in the afternoon of the SEC. Waiting for the Missouri to get angry would be foolish, but the match will be a fascinating test for the Tigers who have been rethought, who ran to a 7-6 lead last year with the # 39; s help a series of small opponents. "This is a great opportunity for us," said Lock on Tuesday Paul Finebaum's show. "It will be a great game. Integrating the UGA here and being a big SEC game is something that Columbia needs and something the university needs. "
It's also something Lock needs. In 2017, he made 44 touchdown passes with a record from the SEC and finished behind just three quarters of Power 5 in yards: Baker Mayfield, Mason Rudolph and Sam Darnold. However, because of the Tigers Jekyll-and-Hyde season, Lock did not compete in the Heisman race, and he tried to stay in school. "I knew I would be able to play and throw it too, if not maybe a little better than most of the top six players that everyone said in the top six," Lock said. "But what really held me back was to be able to speak the [language] football at a level I had. "
After playing the SEC's worst offense under the direction of coordinator Josh Henson in 2015, Lock has spent the last two seasons in Josh Heupel's quick attack. When Heupel became the UCF head coach in December, Missouri found itself at a crossroads, as did Lock. Regardless of his success, he knew he had played his part in an attack that was never well translated in the NFL and that he feared he could talk about football at the level he needed in the interview room.
In seeking to replace Heupel, Missouri was in a unique position. It was wise to do all that was necessary to keep Lock for his senior season, but knowing the reluctance of the quarterback, the conventional course was nonsense. Many players in Lock's position would have preferred a measure of continuity and imagination to learn a new system for a final year of college as they could evolve to the pros and get paid to do the same. But the Missouri quarterback was the exception – and when the Tigers' brass followed the unorthodox way, coaching Cowboys receiver coach Derek Dooley and his professional style, Lock was quick to take her decision. "In our first conversation," says Dooley's Lock, "I knew I was going to learn the pieces [that I needed] to be a first-round choice. "
In the spring, Lock was stunned by the speed with which he learned the language he had never heard in the Heupel offensive. Dooley's playbook is huge in comparison – which was oddly comforting. "[Last year] It was a little more of a guessing game for me, "says Lock. "I had to read a lot of the receivers rather than knowing exactly what they were doing. [Now,] there's a ton more, but I know exactly what everyone does, how to protect myself, where everyone will be – to the point of feeling more relaxed there.
"I do not necessarily have to hope something happens. I can do it.
In three Dooley offensive games, the Tigers showed flashes of their own track record, and their playing comfort quickly adds a twist to Dooley's pro-style pattern. Lock still launched with speed and accuracy – especially on deep bullets – that have long drawn the attention of scouts in the NFL, but he also showed his balance in his progression rather than being stuck on a receiver. "[Defenses know] this attack is such a good team to throw on the field, "says Hoover. "[Now] you will see this offense make a check-out, hit a tight end on a road of choice. As the teams try to keep things in front of them, I see Drew mature and say: I will not take a shot. I will take what they give me. … I think he's a better football player than he was a year ago.
Against Purdue in the third week, Lock recovered the ball with 3:28 remaining and the score at 37. Faced with the Missouri 25-yard line, Lock had to fend on his right to avoid a bag and then found The Tyler Badie, who took a short pass for 20 yards. The play allowed the Missouri record to stay alive and featured Lock's progress. "A year ago, he does not have access to this guy," says Hoover. "I do not think that happens."
Lock's 1,062 yards this season allowed him to overstep last year's pass, although some of the SEC's strongest defenses continue to occur. He has averaged 9.4 yards per attempt (just under 9.5), 11 touchdowns and, in particular, completed 69% of his throws, a significant increase over 57.8% in 2017. The planned Dooley deflation but come true, but even if Lock does not break all his own records from a year ago, he will not worry about it. "The wise people of football will realize [what’s happening], Says the quarterback. "They will see the pieces we are broadcasting. They will see the type of throws we have in our attack, the way we work the offensive, from our race to our pass. They will see us control games.
Lock joke that he imagines that the biggest rebound will come from fans on Twitter if his total touchdown during the season comes to an end. But the quarterback learned, as a rookie, to remove the application of social media in season, so he can only take advantage of this digital antagonism in his imagination. For example: this fall, Missouri has designed a bobblehead for seasonal ticket holders, which shows that the quarterback is ready to pass. When the first model of the figure was launched, Lock had two complaints: Bobblehead Drew had brown eyes (the eyes of Actual Drew are blue) and held the ball "as if he was holding a tray of desserts." the grip has been modified to look more like that of a future first round choice. The eyes? They are still brown, but Lock is not concerned. In fact, when it comes to the bobblehead, he is very interested in how fans could turn to his destruction: "I can not wait to have the first video of someone who throws a pick.
Do not be surprised that Lock posed for a selfie with the Purdue fan who posted at the top of Ross-Ade Stadium last Saturday with a sign saying "Mizzou always sucks". He smiled from ear to ear, eating it: the sign, the victory, the mutilated bobbleheads that exist, more than likely, nowhere, but in the quarterback's imagination.
"The fun part for me in the last couple of years," says Eric Thomas, Lee's Summit coach, "is starting to see that little finger come back, that little advantage. I do not think it's what it is now that he had not had to go through there. If he had walked in his first year and everything had been sun and roses … he would not be as good as he is.
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