COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The Missouri football player who wins what could be the most contested position battle in preseason camp might get very little playing time this fall. But the implications of the No. 2 quarterback derby could be huge.
As All-Southeastern Conference quarterback Drew Lock begins his senior season, Missouri's staff is still working to identify his backup, a player who doesn't figure to get many Saturday snaps as long as Lock stays healthy, which he's done throughout his college career. But Lock won't be back next season. For more than a decade, the Tigers have always had a clear line of succession at the quarterback position.
Brad Smith to Chase Daniel. Daniel to Blaine Gabbert. Gabbert to James Franklin. Franklin to Maty Mauk. Mauk to Lock.
Two weeks before the season's first kickoff, that line is blurred.
Mizzou began preseason camp with four scholarship players as candidates for the No. 2 job. Junior Jack Lowary and sophomore Lindsey Scott Jr., a junior college transfer, opened camp as the top backup options on the depth chart. Since then, Micah Wilson, a sophomore with the most Division I game experience, has split the second-team reps with Scott, who began his career at Louisiana State but left this time last year.
Mizzou coach Barry Odom has said he won't necessarily settle on one backup in time for the Sept. 1 opener against Tennessee-Martin. The competition could linger into the season.
Whatever happens, the top candidates aren't sweating the process.
"I don't worry about anything," said Wilson, a second generation Tiger whose father, Curtis, was MU's starting center in the late 1980s. "I try to take it one play at a time and do my job. That should be the mindset for any quarterback, do your job every play, take care of your business and play smart and do the best you can do."
"The quarterback competition is something I invite," Scott said. "When you come to a school like this and Drew is here, you hope to learn from him. He's an NFL-caliber quarterback. Everybody knows that. I'm trying to soak up as much knowledge as I can."
Wilson, who came to the program in 2016, saw action in five games last year, completed 5 of 10 passes for 48 yards and ran for 89 yards and a touchdown. At 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds, he's got the frame of a pocket passer but is dangerous on his feet, a genuine dual threat compared to the more stationary Lock, who's nimble in the pocket but only a mild running threat on scrambles and designed runs.
Scott, too, gives the Tigers a running element at the position, though he cringes at the suggestion he's a run-first quarterback.
"You get tired of running, so I'd prefer to use my arm," the 5-11, 220-pounder said.
Late last summer, Scott left LSU and enrolled at East Mississippi Community College, the school featured in the first two seasons of the Netflix documentary "Last Chance U," and led the team to an 11-1 record and the junior college national championship, accounting for 4,210 yards of offense (3,481 passing, 729 rushing) and 35 touchdowns. He enrolled at Mizzou in time for spring practices but struggled to move the chains in the Black and Gold scrimmage, misfiring on all but one of his eight passes with two interceptions.
After the April scrimmage, Scott studied footage of his series, diagnosed his problems and kept a meticulous list of his mistakes.
"Now it's fall camp and I don't really look back," he said. "You learn from it and move on."
The other backup candidates, Lowary and redshirt freshman Taylor Powell, have some scrambling skills but fit the pocket passer category. That's where the challenge comes for coordinator Derek Dooley. He'll adjust his play calling to fit the strengths of the quarterback on the field, but to sort the depth chart he has to evaluate based on similar standards.
"It poses a little bit of a challenge just because they do have different skill sets and you want to put them in the best position to help them succeed, and sometimes that requires you to do different things for them that you're not doing with different quarterbacks," he said. "But you've got to be cautious in not adding all these plays. That's been a little tricky. It's not ideal."
However the competition unfolds, the winner figures to have the early lead on the quarterback job for 2019, though Mizzou also has a verbal commitment for 2019 from four-star prospect Connor Bazelak of Dayton, Ohio. If Odom and Dooley aren't content with the contenders to succeed Lock, they could also explore the graduate transfer market.
For now, Wilson and Scott insist they have to block out thoughts of next year. Their tunnel vision has to be 20-20.
"I've just been taking it one day at a time and improve myself every day and take care of business," Wilson said. "I'm not looking at it like, 'oh, next year, blah, blah, blah.' I'm just trying to get better every day."