Mizzou Football: Drew Lock era ends with few tangible results

Mizzou football finished their 2018 season with a disappointing loss to Oklahoma State in the Liberty Bowl. The loss really makes it feel like Drew Lock’s college career went to waste.

Drew Lock has a bright future ahead of him. The Mizzou football quarterback has been fun to watch during his four years in Columbia with the Tigers and is second all-time in passing yards in the SEC.

Lock will surely be a first round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft and has the potential to be a top ten pick. If Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins ends up staying in school for another year, Lock has a case to be a top five pick in the draft.

With how good of a talent Lock was at the quarterback position, Missouri didn’t accomplish what they should have accomplished with him.

Lock’s freshman year was in 2015, which was Gary Pinkel’s final year as the head coach. MU was bad that year, going 5-7 and winning just one conference game all season. Lock wasn’t the starter all year, but did throw for over 1,300 yards with four touchdowns and eight picks. Missouri being bad wasn’t the end of the world since Lock was just a freshman.

In 2016, Mizzou was even worse, but Lock was taking his lumps and the results were showing. He threw for 3,399 yards, 23 touchdowns, and ten interceptions. MU finished 2016 with a 4-8 record and went 2-6 in the SEC.

We finally started to see some progress in year three, but it wasn’t easy.

Missouri got off to a slow start, but rebounded nicely to finish the year at 8-4. They qualified for their first bowl game of the Drew Lock era, but did not fare well in it, losing to Texas in the Texas Bowl with the Longhorns’ MVP being their punter. I’m not making this up, I promise.

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We all know how the 2018 season concluded. The Tigers looked good over the past month and a half and qualified for the Liberty Bowl against Oklahoma State. With the opportunity to win the game in the final minute, the Tigers couldn’t convert on fourth and one and lost the game.

Drew Lock finished his career at Mizzou with two winning seasons, but zero bowl wins to show for it. While that’s not what pro teams look for in the NFL draft, Lock deserved better during his career.

When the 2018 season was about to get under way, there was talk that Lock could be a potential Heisman Trophy candidate. It appeared that the season would, at the very least, end with Missouri partaking in a big time bowl game.

While an 8-4 record is nothing to scoff at, Mizzou really should have been 10-2. They gave away wins to South Carolina and Kentucky, both of which would have given the Tigers wins against two good teams in the SEC. They’d have ended with a 6-2 conference record rather than their 4-4 campaign, with three of those four wins coming against bad teams.

With a talent like Drew Lock, the Missouri Tigers should have been contenders in the SEC, especially in 2018. They weren’t better than Alabama this year and that was proven when the two teams played, but Lock was very much the type of quarterback who could have led this team to an SEC Championship Game.

As we look back and reflect on Drew Lock’s career, it’s hard not to think what could have been under a quarterback like this kid. He now moves onto to focus on his pro career where he’ll be a first round pick and we’ll likely be seeing him take the snaps by midseason for whoever ends up drafting him.

Mizzou will turn the quarterbacking duties over to Kelly Bryant, who is transferring to Columbia for the 2019 season. Hopefully the Kelly Bryant era, which will last just one year, ends with a bowl victory at the very least.

Obviously Missouri fans should be thankful for Drew Lock and what he gave to this program, but it’s always going to feel like more should have been on the line.