Reading between the lines isn’t always a strength here so assuming Jake Garcia is here for the spring semester here’s what it means:
*Missouri does not know who its starting quarterback is for next season. I’ve seen a lot of people (most of whom I’m assuming are acting out of wishful thinking and trying to will into existence positive thoughts) try to convince us that’s not true. But it’s true.
Garcia doesn’t come here if he doesn’t think there’s a reasonable chance he can win the job. He almost certainly hasn’t been promised the job but he isn’t coming here happy to back up a guy that’s a year younger than he is. He is looking for a chance to start at a Power Five school. He has that chance at Missouri.
It doesn’t mean he will start. Maybe Sam Horn does. Maybe Brady Cook does (if Cook does it means either he has made strides to distance himself from the competition which could mean Brady has improved a lot or could mean that Horn and Garcia aren’t as good as their rankings or as you guys hope they are. It would probably mean some combination of both).
The quarterback play and the offense as a whole absolutely have to improve. This is not up for debate. If Missouri’s offense isn’t better next year there’s a very good chance it will cost Drinkwitz his job. He knows that. He isn’t dumb and isn’t living in denial of it.
So where we land is where we’ve always landed: He has to identify the best quarterback and he has to be right in that identification and that guy has to lead an offense that shows improvement and helps improve the results on the field THIS YEAR. Period.
I don’t know which of the three will win the job. It doesn’t matter. Drinkwitz just has to be right. At least one of these three almost certainly won’t be on the roster 12 months from today. Quite possibly two of the three. None of us has any idea who will win the job, who will stay and who will go. The next seven months are, more than any other singular thing, about selecting that guy and about being right in that selection.
By December 1 every answer anybody needs is going to be obvious in one way or the other. The nonstop debates about the QB position and the head coach and the program will have their answers. Some will probably continue to make arguments why those answers aren’t necessarily obvious (in either direction) but 2023 is going to give us the answers. And at that point, the only thing in doubt will be whether Missouri has started down a successful path or whether it needs to go back and start over.