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Before Drew Lock took Faurot Field for his last possession in front of a local Missouri crowd, a Tiger assistant coach pitched a quarter blitz with a pop quiz.
"You know how to do that properly?" Asked Ted Monachino, a defensive analyst of the MU.
Lock answered with a confused look. Given Missouri's huge lead over Arkansas, this early-fourth-quarter interaction could have been the first thing that would have escaped Friday.
"Do you know how to get off the pitch?" Monachino told the quarterback, who will likely end his career in second place in the standings among the quarterbacks of the Southeast Conference.
"You'd better have a plan, so you do not look silly."
Until then, Lock, a native of Lee's Summit, had not even realized that his next play would be his last in Colombia. His offense had been in every game and he had completed 16 of 25 passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns in front of NFL leader John Elway and Jerry Jones, two of many men who will rate Lock as a professional prospect in the match . months to come.
"My whole mentality is this: was he really there to watch me?" Lock said about Elway. "I feel that I always want to prove a lot to these people."
Lock was handed over to Simi Bakare before squeezing each teammate on the field. He gave a quick point to the sparse crowd before leaving with 9:31 to go in the fourth quarter of Missouri's 38-0 win on a rainy and rainy black Friday.
After their previous two home games against Kentucky and Vanderbilt, the last two games have been defeated. Lock and MU left no room for suspense in this competition. Lock suffered the most pressure on Friday, a few hours before the kickoff. As he was crossing the bridge between the Missouri Athletes Training Center and Memorial Stadium, he turned a corner and found about fifteen of his teammates waiting for him. Lock went into an avalanche of hugs, the closest thing to a bag that he had known all day.
"There he is," said one of them as Lock headed for the sidewalk.
Former Lock teammates were huddled in front of his parents when their former quarter turned the corner to see them. A smile immediately appeared on his face as they were harassing him before he could get a word out.
"That's what (my last home game) is supposed to look like," Lock thought at the time.
Lock then headed to his parents, who were already enjoying each other's 18 Missouri seniors. Even before Lock's father, Andy, a former offensive lineman at the MU, kissed his son, he admitted he was becoming sentimental.
"I'm trying to fend off this idea," said the quarterback's father about his son's last home game.
After the opening move, Lock did not need much during the first round of MU. Back-sophomore Larry Rountree was hit eight times in the first 11-game UMP game, culminating in a 9-yard touchdown from Lock.
Linebacker Terez Hall offered Lock a short field late in the first quarter after intercepting a pass on the 35-meter Arkansas line. Lock was twice assigned to Rountree before finding senior player Emanuel Hall for a 19-yard gain on Arkansas' 8-yard line. Three games later, Lock entered the end zone for his second goal of the match, the fastest of his career.
"It was a shock to me," Lock said of his rushed scores. "They gave me some good looks to be able to shoot the ball, and I took advantage of it."
Before Elway could start thinking of Lock as a double threat quarterback, Lock won the field with a score of 1:39 in the first half on Hogs' 43-yard line, after a solid run for the defense of the MU. Really freshman Tyler Badie led the Tigers into the red zone with a 32-yard run. Lock then sent a 6-yard laser to Hall for a touchdown.
In the third quarter, Lock began looking for Kendall Blanton, the senior restricted teammate. Lock wanted to send Blanton, a graduate of Blue Springs South with a touchdown too.
"(Derek's offensive coordinator), Dooley has called a lot of plays on our way," said Hall referring to seniors. "Dooley and Drew were trying to get us the ball."
Blanton dropped a pass from Lock while MU was driving on the field and the match would have been very profitable. Two games later, the Hogs jumped sides and Lock took advantage of free play.
He found Hall deep on a borrowed and connected road before the senior crew split two defenders for a 67-yard touchdown. The game extended the Missouri lead to 35-0 with 8:19 remaining in the third quarter and Elway had seen enough. He left the stadium with Gary Kubiak, former coach and coach of the Broncos.
With the match in hand, Lock admitted that his second touchdown at Hall made him think what this season could have been. The Missouri attack was beaten without Hall's health in his defeats against Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama, but when the quarterback had his best receiver, the Tigers averaged 389 yards in the first three games.
Shortly after the heartbreaking loss of Missouri to Kentucky on October 27, Lock approached head coach Barry Odom after taking a look at the remaining program.
"Anything that is not 8-4 would not be fair," Lock told Odom.
The legacy of the two men at MU is intimately linked. Before this season, both were considered to have CVs filled with empty calories. Lock set an SEC record for touchdown passes during a season last year, but he played in a simplistic attack. The Odom team bounced back after a 1-5 start to bowl during its second season as head coach, but the Tigers' six-game winning streak to close the 2017 regular season was a big one. did not include a win on a team with a winning record.
Now, Lock and Odom have knocked down a Florida ranked team on the road and all the teams they were supposed to beat at home to close this season. With a coming Cup match, the Tigers have a chance to finish their first season of nine wins since 2014.
While he was preparing to come out of the training center after a home win for the last time, Lock and his family talked to KCTV5. A television camera illuminated the sweaty room on the disc, and after years of monitoring by Andy while his son was conducting interviews, Lock's parents were standing by his side. Right now, he had everything he wanted.
"The best way to say that is that I felt good," Lock said of his last home game. "There was no way to leave this game without a win."
Alex Schiffer
Alex Schiffer covers athletics at the University of Missouri for The Star.
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