Statistically, the Missouri Tigers are still in the running for the College Football Playoff. While the lights may be starting to dim and the doubters are coming out, all attention will turn to Matt Zollers
this Saturday as the Aggies come to town looking to end Missouri’s playoff hopes and test their resilience.
In eight games this season Zollers has appeared five times, making his collegiate debut against the University of Central Arkansas and throwing for 58 yards while collecting his first ever TD.
Since, he’s silently been a helping hand for the Tigers. Until he had to stare adversity in the eyes and play in his first SEC game, on the road, against #9 ranked Vanderbilt when Beau Pribula went down with a potential season-ending ankle injury.
But the freshman didn’t blink.
In fact, he put up better numbers than Heisman campaigner Diego Pavia.
Entering with around 11 minutes left in the third quarter and the game at a stalemate tied 3-3, Zollers stepped up to the daunting challenge and slung 138 yards in the air with a touchdown. He had more yards and touchdowns than Pavia (129 yards, 0 TDs). The newcomer also almost sent the game to overtime in the dying seconds of the game but a Hail Mary to Kevin Coleman Jr. was ruled just inches short of the goal line and Vanderbilt walked away victorious.
So how does Zollers shine?
The five-star recruit out of high school has an absolute cannon of an arm as well as a quick release. Without going too much into detail, HC Eli Drinkwitz said while the full playbook won’t be on the cards for Saturday, they will be able to “push things in the playbook that maybe haven’t been shown” because there are some things he is more comfortable with than Pribula.
In a previous Rock M post, Sammy Stava watched high school game footage and recorded some key notes.
His highlight film shows you everything you want to see:
- Operate the zone-read keeper for a long touchdown run.
- Ability to make pass rushers miss, reset, and throw accurately.
- Shiftiness in the pocket to buy time.
- Good strength and accuracy when throwing on the run.
- The ability to throw absolute bombs down the field (longest I saw was 55-ish yards in the air).
At Tiger Talk Drinkwitz also added, “He’s a really, really good golfer, so he creates tension on his T-spine (thoracic spine) by separating his hips, and that’s what you see with a lot of the really good NFL quarterbacks. He creates hip displacement, so he’s got some natural mechanics.”
Facing one of the nation’s toughest defenses will be no easy feat but as Drinkwitz said, “there’s no defense for the perfect throw.”
It will take a degree of getting comfortable and settling in, but I would expect Kirby Moore to let Zollers sling it across the field and target some of the Tiger’s best receivers, something that wasn’t all to common with Pribula.
I think Zollers has the potential to fit right in to a recently struggling Kirby Moore play calling scheme. Now granted, this game will not be won solely thanks to the quarterback, it will be a team effort to play complimentary football and pull off an upset at home.
Plus, this isn’t the first time Eli Drinkwitz has had to coach a true freshman QB after the starter succumbed to an ankle injury.
As the offensive coordinator in 2015 at Boise State, this exact situation happened and Brett Rypien had to step up, a scenario that has influenced Drinkwitz’s approach with Zollers.
“I think that’s something that I talked to Kirby about and something that we’ve experienced before,” said Drinkwitz. “Yeah, there’s absolutely some lessons there …. So, we got to try to limit the exposure of Matt, not to put him on an island. You know, and that that kind of happened to us, looking back at Brett when we played Air Force and had to learn the hard way from that one.”
Midday on Saturday in front of a sold out crowd Matt Zollers will record his first collegiate start against the undefeated #3 Texas A&M Aggies (talk about the most difficult test).
Coming off one of his best weeks of training, “[Zollers] has done a really good job in practice of leadership, stepping up, embracing the moment, embracing the opportunity,” said Drinkwitz.
Hearing from players postgame after Vanderbilt, they expressed how they were not surprised Zollers displayed the poise and talent he did.
In Tuesday’s press conference Jalen Catalon added to the praise.
“Yeah, he’s going to be ready to go,” said Catalon. “We trust him, we trust Matt, his preparation, what we’ve been seeing from him out of practice.”
Connor Tollison also added that it’s the teams job to also take off the pressure and provide Zollers with any potential support.
“We got to do our job, raise our level, try to do everything we can to the best of our abilities just to try to take any pressure we can off him,” said Tollison. “He’s not going to have an easy job, so we got to do everything we can in our power to make it easier for him.”
I don’t expect Zollers to answer every question in his first test and that it’s unreasonable to place a pile of expectations on him, but if he plays his game I believe he will prove that he is the future.
