Kelly Bryant Should have Swiped Left on Missouri Football
BRYANT HAS BIG SHOES TO FILL
The Missouri Tigers run a predominately spread offense. Drew Lock was notorious for standing in the pocket and airing it out to his stable full of wideouts and tight ends.
For his career at Missouri, Lock threw for 12,193 yards, 99 touchdowns, and 39 interceptions. Locke was a dominant force at Missouri, and it showed.
Last season, Lock completed 275-of-437 passes for 3,498 yards, 28 touchdowns, and eight interceptions.
He did that well with a new offensive coordinator. Derek Dooley took the job and last season was his first year. He tweaked the offense some and allowed the running backs to balance out the offense.
Even though he balanced out the offense, there will have to change with the passing to accommodate Bryant. The transfer quarterback doesn’t have the arm strength to compete on Locke’s level and is one of the reasons he got beat out at Clemson.
Missouri just changed the offense last year. So why would the Tigers want to make even more changes for a one-year starter? It honestly makes no sense to me. Yes, the changes will be minor and it is just a quarterback that isn’t as strong as the guy they had before, but still.
Bryant threw for 3,338 yards 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions during his career at Clemson. He completed 66.2 percent of his passes, but that is against a majority ACC teams not stacked SEC defenses.
In 2019 the Tigers have to take on Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina this season. All four of those teams always have smash mouth defenses that will destroy an indecisive quarterback.
I don’t see why Missouri didn’t decide to work with Taylor Powell or Micah Wilson and develop one of them into the next quarterback. Granted I know neither have much or very little experience, but you develop one of them to be the long-term starter.
Instead, the Tigers chose an over-hyped ACC quarterback from South Carolina. That decision could end up biting them in the rear end and hurting them in the long run.