Published on Show Me Mizzou Sept. 16, 2025
Story by Alex Schiffer, BJ ’17
It’s his first season in college sports’ revenue-sharing era, his first time playing — and defeating — rival Kansas and his first year without quarterback Brady Cook on the roster.
Over the past three seasons, Cook and Drinkwitz became intertwined after the QB landed the starting gig in 2022. He signed with Mizzou a month before Drinkwitz was hired, and in 2023 and 2024 the duo took the program to some of its greatest heights.
Cook held onto his starting job despite several transfer quarterbacks competing for the spot. He finished his career No. 2 in wins for a Tiger starting quarterback, trailing only Chase Daniel. Drinkwitz, who had just one year as a head coach at Appalachian State before coming to Columbia, proved the job wasn’t too big for him, and that he could adapt to the ever-changing college landscape.
He’s had to adjust to life without Cook, but so far, it’s been a smooth transition. Beau Pribula has the Tigers off to a hot start and recently led the Tigers biggest comeback win in a decade. And it was versus Kansas.
“There’s a lot to improve on, but in the biggest moments, in the toughest times on fourth down, he was nails,” Drinkwitz said of Pribula after the Kansas game.
The team is looking to make history by pursuing its third consecutive 10-win season for the first time ever. It’s doing so with a mix of familiar faces and transfers, including a few former recruits who got away the first time. “Something to Prove” has been the program’s mantra under Drinkwitz, and despite going 21–5 the past two seasons, the Tigers were picked to finish 12th in the Southeastern Conference’s preseason poll.
For Drinkwitz, it’s just another form of motivation.
“There’s also something to prove at the University of Missouri,” he said during a July news conference. “Whether you’re proving that to yourself or proving that to outside noise or you’re proving it to your brothers that they were right to believe in you.”
The Tigers started the season 2-0 with a 61-6 trouncing over Central Arkansas followed by that victory over Kansas, 43-21. After the win, the squad eked into the AP Top 25 poll for the first time this season.
New Faces, Familiar Formula
Although Mizzou has a new quarterback in Pribula, the Tigers’ offense boasts plenty of returning players, with a handful of impact transfers mixed in.
To protect Pribula, the Tigers have returned center Connor Tollison, who tore his ACL nine games into the 2024 season, and lineman Cayden Green, a preseason All-SEC choice who hails from Lee’s Summit.
At wide receiver, Josh Manning, another Kansas City-area product, and Marquis Johnson, a proven deep threat, hope to offset the loss of Luther Burden III, who is now a Chicago Bear. To replace Burden, Missouri landed another wideout from St. Louis in Kevin Coleman Jr.
Missouri has been ahead of the curve nationally in name, image and likeness as former Tiger Kurtis Gregory, BS ’08, MS ’09, helped pass a state law in December that allows high school recruits to start getting paid immediately upon signing with an in-state school. It helped Missouri secure player commitments, but the Tigers’ NIL operations also have allowed them to be aggressive in the transfer portal.
The Tigers landed running back Ahmad Hardy from Louisiana-Monroe University and Coleman from Mississippi State. Coleman hails from St. Louis and committed to Deion Sanders and Jackson State out of high school but has returned to his home state to finish his college career.
Even with these high-impact transfers, a true freshman might end up turning heads at receiver.
“I think Donovan Olugbode is going to be a guy that we’re going to be really excited about and can’t wait to watch him continue to grow,” Drinkwitz says.
The Tigers have the offensive talent, but who would lead them after Cook’s departure remained a question going into the season. The team entered camp ready for a QB battle between Pribula and Sam Horn, a redshirt junior. Before committing to the Tigers, Pribula backed up Nittany Lions quarterback Drew Allar on a team that won two games in the
College Football Playoff.
Horn, out of Collins Hill High School in Georgia, excelled as a pitcher for the baseball Tigers before being drafted in the 17th round by the Los Angeles Dodgers in July and signing soon after. His bid to be the Tigers’ starting quarterback, however, ended in the first quarter of the season opener against Central Arkansas when he injured his right leg.
“Sam has an injury that’s going to keep him out for an extended period of time,” Drinkwitz said before the Kansas game. “I’m not going to get into specifics, but he will be out.”
Pribula managed the offense without issue through the first two games. He threw for 617 yards, five touchdowns and zero interceptions. He also rushed for a pair of touchdowns, making it look easy in the process.
“When you see that guy staying calm, you got no worries,” Coleman said after the Jayhawks victory. “Confidence is everything. We saw the confidence he was coming with, the energy he was bringing. So we all just stayed poised.”
Pribula has kept the offense humming despite the loss of Burden. Against Kansas, Coleman emerged as the quarterback’s favorite target, hauling in 10 catches for 126 yards and a touchdown. Olugbode started to make Drinkwitz’s comments seem prophetic with a spectacular one-handed catch on fourth down, to say nothing of tight end Brett Norfleet’s pair of touchdowns.
“There’s a lot of trust with all the tight ends, receivers and running backs because they work extremely hard, and we have a really good connection,” Pribula said after the Kansas game. “I have a lot of belief in them, and vice versa, and anytime you have that it’s really big for the connection.”
It was a hard-fought game, the quarterback added, “and we got better today as a team. Anytime you play a good opponent like Kansas — props to them for battling through — I think it just makes us better.”
The Strength Up Front
On the other side of the ball, the Tigers keep seven starters from a defense that ranked in the top 20 a year ago, headlined by experienced seniors on the line in Zion Young, Chris McClellan and Sterling Webb. With them is a pair of Georgia transfers, Damon Wilson and Darris Smith. Wilson was one of the most sought-after players in the transfer portal. Linebacker Josiah Trotter is behind the linemen. He was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year at West Virginia before transferring to Missouri.
“I think our front seven players are going to be the strength of our team,” Drinkwitz said during the preseason. “I think obviously we’re going to have the ability to affect the passer with our defensive end position, stop the run with our D tackles and linebackers. I think Josiah Trotter has really had a great summer as far as leadership and establishing himself as somebody that we can count on.”
Playing alongside Trotter is a linebacker the Tigers didn’t expect to see again. Triston Newson exhausted his eligibility with the team at the end of the 2024 season, but Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia’s successful lawsuit seeking to eradicate junior college time from a player’s NCAA eligibility clock gave Newson another year with the Tigers.
He’s joined by another fifth-year Tiger in Daylan Carnell, who will anchor the team’s secondary alongside Marvin Burks, another St. Louis native. Drinkwitz also speaks highly of safety Jalen Catalon, who will finish his career at Mizzou after playing for Arkansas, Texas and UNLV. The safety was a first-team all-conference selection in both the SEC (2020) and the Mountain West (2024).
Cook, Burden, Johnny Walker and Kristian Williams were among the team’s most prominent recent leaders, and Drinkwitz says it’s been a collective effort to replace the Tigers’ main influences in the locker room.
“I’ve been really proud of Khalil Jacobs, Josiah Trotter, Daylan Carnell, as he continues to emerge,” Drinkwitz says. “I think all the quarterbacks have done a really good job. Brett Norfleet, Jamal Roberts, Josh Manning — their consistency shines through.”
Rivalry Reignited, Standards Raised
When the Border Showdown returned on Sept. 6 for the first time since Mizzou left for the SEC, it unfolded at Faurot Field. From 2007 to 2011, the rivalry had made its home at Arrowhead Stadium.
Drinkwitz started preparing for the game early in the season. He had Jim Spain, Mizzou’s longtime provost of undergraduate studies, speak to the team about the rivalry’s history while former player and longtime assistant coach Andy Hill spoke about its emotional significance.
The stands at Memorial Stadium donned the black and gold Tiger stripe to welcome the school’s long-time rival for the first time in a decade and a half. The reduced stadium seating for renovations did nothing to subtract from the rowdiness of the crowd.
The Tigers trailed 21-6 at the end of the first quarter but outscored the Jayhawks 36-10 the rest of the game. KU cashed in on Pribula’s early fumble, but he more than made up for it, throwing three touchdowns and totaling 334 yards passing. Ahmad Hardy and Jamal Roberts combined to rush for 255 yards and Coleman emerged as Pribula’s favorite target. Roberts’ 63-yard touchdown run in the final two minutes served as the game’s dagger and kept the War Drum trophy in Columbia.
“This is the Missouri that I’ve always dreamed of and believed in,” Drinkwitz said after the game. “This should be the expectation moving forward. It’s not just about beating Kansas. It’s about being like this all the time.”
Kansas was the second of eight home games for a Tiger team that hopes to break through to the College Football Playoff for the first time after finishing on the outside looking in the past two seasons.
The win over Kansas is the most recent of Drinkwitz’s many triumphs, a run that has taken the program to unprecedented heights — from top-20 recruiting classes to a record eight Tigers invited to the 2024 NFL Combine. Now he’s pushing to raise the program’s ceiling and do what no Missouri coach has ever done: Earn three consecutive 10-win seasons.
At the SEC press conference in July, defenseman Carnell said Drinkwitz had already started using the three straight double-digit seasons in conversations with the seniors such as him and Tollison. If they pull it off, it will make Drinkwitz’s 2021 recruiting class the winningest in school history.
The rest of Missouri’s season will be defined by the coach’s ability to mesh the transfers with his returners and manage Pribula’s skills in and outside of the pocket. Although the coach and the Tigers are chasing history, he believes the next step for the program is to make its recent success routine.
“It’s all about consistency,” Drinkwitz says. “The next step is to try to replicate the success and do it just a little bit better. What you did last year doesn’t translate to success this year. You have to continue to apply that process.”
To view a photo gallery of the Mizzou vs. Kansas weekend, click here.
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