Missouri football hasn’t settled on its starting quarterback for the 2025 season.
But how about everyone else the Tigers will play?
If ever there’s a time for arbitrary college football lists and rankings, it’s in May. The transfer portal is closed. Spring practices are wrapped. Other than offseason workouts, there isn’t much else going on in the college football universe for more than two months. There are 114 days, as of Tuesday, May 6, until Mizzou takes the field for its season-opener.
So, let’s start predicting.
Here are the 12 quarterbacks that Missouri likely will face in the 2024 season, ranked in descending order:
12: Austin Myers, Central Arkansas
Faces Missouri: Aug. 28 in Columbia
Myers is likely going to be the starter for Central Arkansas in the Thursday night opener. He has thrown 20 passes in his college career, which have traveled 155 total yards for two touchdowns and an interception.
11: Grant Jordan, UMass
Faces Missouri: Sept. 27 in Columbia
Jordan is a graduate transfer from Yale and is the probable starter for the Minutemen when they arrive in Columbia for Mizzou’s homecoming game. In nine games with Yale, he threw for 1,938 passing yards with 22 touchdowns and three interceptions.
10: Walker Howard, Louisiana
Faces Missouri: Sept. 13 in Columbia
Ole Miss transfer Walker Howard is the favorite to win the starting job at Louisiana next season, althoughthat hasn’t quite been confirmed yet. The former blue-chip prospect has played reserve minutes at both LSU and Ole Miss. That’s good enough for me to rank him above UMass and Central Arkansas’ starters.
9: Blake Shapen, Mississippi State
Faces Missouri: Nov. 15 in Columbia
One year later and with a medical hardship waiver in hand, the situation in Starkville for Shapen, who missed most of last season, still does not look spectacular. He has more than 6,500 career passing yards and 44 touchdowns. All of his talent and experience will be tested with no obvious star playmakers for the Bulldogs.
8: Jackson Arnold, Auburn
Unless Arnold takes a significant step forward after a change of scenery from Oklahoma to Auburn, his time as an SEC starter may be limited. He showed flashes in an Oklahoma offense that had no discernible passing game last season. Ball security was an issue, which MU fans surely remember well.
Auburn ought to give him the weapons to succeed. He had a bad situation with the Sooners last season, but with Cam Coleman and top transfer Eric Singleton Jr. and more catching passes on the Plains, that’s over.
7: Taylen Green, Arkansas
Faces Missouri: Nov. 29 in Fayetteville, Ark.
Green is incredibly mobile and a danger when he pulls the ball down. But his limitations as a starter became quite clear as last season wore on: He often holds onto the ball too long and takes some avoidable sacks, and he isn’t the most accurate passer in the SEC. He played well in the snow on Faurot last season, and another year under OC Bobby Petrino won’t hurt.
6: Jalon Daniels, Kansas
If Daniels can beat back the turnover bug, he’s a threat in Week 2 at quarterback. Kansas found some form toward the end of the 2024 season, but that was too little, too late — even in the blender that was the Big 12.
So, which Daniels will it be when Border War on the football field returns for the first time in 14 years? Will he be the quarterback who threw eight picks in five games to start last season, or the 2022 dual-threat breakout who burst onto the scene with a 544-yard, five-touchdown bowl game against Arkansas?
5: Marcel Reed, Texas A&M
Faces Missouri: Nov. 8 in Columbia
Reed only broke into the lineup full time after the Aggies smashed Mizzou — which was faultily expecting him to start — in College Station. Reed’s dual-threat ability gave teams some problems early on, but once the shine wore off and teams learned what to expect, Reed looked limited as a passer.
He makes up for that by being excellent on the ground. Reed passed for 1,864 yards, 15 touchdowns, and six interceptions and rushed for 547 yards and seven scores last season.
4: Ty Simpson, Alabama
Faces Missouri: Oct. 11 in Columbia
Alabama has not named its starter yet, but Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said after the team’s spring game that if the Crimson Tide had a game the next day, then Simpson would get the nod.
Simpson’s limited college tape shows that he can move, but the general consensus is that he will be more of a pocket passer. In 16-career reserve games, he has thrown for 381 yards without a touchdown or interception and rushed for 130 yards and three trips to the end zone. His ceiling is seemingly high, but there’s still a lot of unknown.
3: Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt
Faces Missouri: Oct. 25 in Nashville, Tenn.
Yes, the man who changed the college football rulebook is back for another year. Pavia, after suing the NCAA for more eligibility, is going to be the same tough, rough-and-tumble opponent that endeared him to so many college football fans last season.
Pavia is tricky to contain. He runs like a fullback and has an accurate enough arm to always be a threat. With the way Vandy has been trending in recent seasons, the Tigers will be in for a tough game in Nashville.
2: John Mateer, Oklahoma
Faces Missouri: Nov. 22 in Norman, Okla.
If you stayed up into the wee hours to watch Mateer at Washington State last season, it was usually worth missing some sleep. Some passes travelled through ill-advised windows, and he’s also prone to some health-averse runs.
How will he fit at OU? There’s a lot of pressure in Norman, where Brent Venables is firmly on the hot seat entering 2025. How good Mateer is may dictate who the coach is in 2026.
All signs suggest, however, that Mateer is pretty excellent. He passed for 3,139 yards, 29 touchdowns, and seven interceptions last season. He rushed for 826 yards and 15 touchdowns. Now, we’ll see if that translates to the SEC.
