Kwiecinski: What makes Mizzou quarterback Sam Horn's third-team reps exciting to watch

I have no idea how good Sam Horn will be for Missouri. Absolutely no idea.

I don’t have a crystal quarterback ball to peek into. If I did, I would most likely be asking who head coach Eli Drinkwitz would be starting Week 1, anyway.

That’s what made Horn so intriguing to watch as he took third-team snaps at the first padded practice Sunday. Given how much he will need to prove in three weeks, it’s hard to see him starting against Louisiana Tech on Sept. 1. Either Brady Cook, Tyler Macon or Jack Abraham figures to be that guy.

Still, Horn’s presence is impossible to ignore. I couldn’t look away from his third-team plays at quarterback.

He represents the future of Missouri football.

As a four-star quarterback prospect from Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Georgia, he already is the fourth-highest recruited quarterback to ever come to Missouri and is also an established winner at the highest class of high school football in Georgia.

That’s just another facet to add to the Tigers’ quarterback room this season.

“Jack's already married,” MU quarterbacks coach Bush Hamdan recently said of Abraham, a sixth-year senior, before contrasting him to Horn. “Sam's just stepping foot on a college campus for the first time.”

Taking the reins of Mizzou's offense

I fully expect there will be a moment when Horn takes over the reins of the MU offense. That day is coming closer with each play he makes in practice.

In the part of the Tigers’ first full padded practice of the season Sunday where media could observe, Missouri simulated a goal-line situation where the ball was spotted at the 2-yard line. The offense had to punch it in; the defense had to make a stop.

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After Cook performed his first-team reps and Macon took second-team reps, Horn got his shot with the third team.

Standing in command of the offense, Horn looks the part with his 6-foot-4, 220-pound frame. He naturally looks like he fits.

He threw the ball just once, an incompletion, but scored on an option play where he was in charge of reading the defense and either handing the ball off or taking it himself. He took it and outran linebacker Zack Lovett to the end zone.

His feet, not the cannon of an arm that MU coaches have raved about, got him into the end zone. Not that it’s imperative that quarterbacks can have that mobility to go in hand with arm strength and accuracy, but most of the best college quarterbacks in recent memory have boasted both skill sets.

Drinkwitz thought the ball was going to go one way, but it went another for a score.

A successful SEC quarterback needs to be able to score from the 2 as much as they can from midfield. It’s important to have those multiple skill sets that get you in the end zone from the 2 or even the red zone in general.

Last season, MU had a 90% scoring rate when it ventured inside its opponent’s 20-yard line. The Tigers scored 36 times in 40 chances; only 26 of those 36 scores were touchdowns. Missouri scored touchdowns just 65% of the time it was in the red zone.

Horn can certainly sling the ball. It’s what coaches have praised about him since his first days working with the staff this summer.

“There’s a high level of talent there,” Drinkwitz said after the first day of practice Aug. 1. “He’s just going to have to pick up the speed of the game and the understanding of the X’s and O’s, which is kind of what the expectation is going into this thing.”

Making the correct read in short-yardage situations could be the difference between him playing on Saturdays and Sundays.

Any talk of Sundays is premature, however. He’s made his share of mistakes in the first week of camp, including forgetting to motion a player on the first day of camp, per Drinkwitz. That’s easily corrected.

What has to come more naturally is the leadership component Drinkwitz wants his starting quarterbacks to have. That might be the most demanding part of the job.

“Do you own everything that goes on,” Drinkwitz said on Aug. 1. “Can you take ownership of the good and bad, and that’s what we’re looking for at the quarterback position.”

When we may see Sam Horn play this Mizzou season

How Horn leads will come to light as his days turn into weeks and months in Columbia. In the present, what I’m wondering is when Horn will make his first appearance.

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There are three games this year I can see him entering: Sept. 1 against Louisiana Tech, Sept. 17 against Abilene Christian and Nov. 19 against New Mexico State.

These are nonconference home games where Missouri should be heavily favored. There will be a chance the Tigers are up by a large margin, allowing the staff to call it a day for the starting quarterback.

It might not be against LA Tech, as the second-string quarterback could be called on for that clean-up role, but there’s a good chance Horn could see the field against Abilene Christian, a FCS program, and New Mexico State, an independent FBS program that’s won just seven combined games in its last three full seasons.

Against FCS Southeast Missouri State last year, three strings of quarterbacks got playing time. Cook and Macon both threw touchdown passes in a blowout win as QBs No. 2 and 3, respectively.

If Horn gets into a game where MU has a hefty lead, there won’t be any pressure on him. He would have his chance to get used to playing in a live game at Faurot Field. After that comes playing at Faurot with SEC standings on the line.

We’re still weeks, maybe months, away from him taking the field in a game. But there’s no denying what he could be for a program that’s had quarterbacks like Chase Daniel, Brad Smith, Drew Lock and Blaine Gabbert since the turn of the century.

The idea Horn could be even better is why I can’t stop watching every play he takes in practice.

I have no idea how good he will be for Missouri.

But it will be fun to find out.

Chris Kwiecinski is the sports editor for the Columbia Daily Tribune, overseeing University of Missouri and Boone County sports coverage. Follow him on Twitter @OchoK_ and contact him at CKwiecinsk@gannett.com or 573-815-1857.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: What makes Mizzou football's Sam Horn fun to watch this fall camp