COLUMBIA, Mo. - Saddled as they are with a requisite grain of salt, preseason scrimmages provide many with their first chance to see a football team compete in anything resembling live gameplay.
Many of Missouri's fresh faces made encouraging strides Saturday in the Tigers' first of three fall scrimmages. As can be expected with just less than two weeks of camp remaining, however, there are plenty of improvements to be made.
"Every scrimmage you've got good things, bad things and things that need improved," coach Gary Pinkel said, "and that's what we're going to do. We'll go analyze and we take into consideration a lot of things when we're looking at depth. We take into consideration all nine practices, just not the scrimmage. ... We take into consideration who they go against on the field. We take into consideration their consistency of their grade, their production, so there's all these different things that we look at and then we analyze personnel."
Much of the curiosity Saturday was directed at the Tigers' receiving corps, which returns no starters and just 10 combined catches. The scrimmage left room for optimism, as three receivers - two freshmen and a sophomore - had catches of 60 or more yards.
True freshman Justin Smith had the first, a 60-yard touchdown off a screen pass from Marvin Zanders to start the day's scoring.
"Justin is for now known as "Long Legs,' because he caught that screen and just got long on everybody, just stride after stride," sophomore receiver J'Mon Moore said. "... I feel like one of his strides is like three of a normal person's."
Moore did Smith five better, hauling in a 65 yard pass from Eddie Prinz, who was nearly sacked by his own lineman on the play. Moore was tackled at the 5 yard line, and Luke Jackson hit a 22-yard field goal four plays later for the second score of the scrimmage. Moore finished with a team-high 105 yards on five catches.
Johnathon Johnson, another true freshman, had a 64-yard reception from Zanders to set up the final score of the day, a 2-yard run by Ryan Williams.
Overall, the Tigers threw for 652 yards on 52-of-85 passing. Tailback Marquise Doherty, senior receiver Wesley Leftwich, defensive-back-turned-receiver Raymond Wingo and tight end Jason Reese also had touchdown catches.
"Today was pretty good," Moore said of the passing game. "A lot of balls being caught. (Receivers) coach (Pat) Washington stays on us about making the best of our opportunities, so him and (offensive coordinator Josh) Henson, especially, they just stress about catching the ball. A lot of receivers just looked the ball in and made plays. You could see that over time that we're getting better."
Freshman receivers weren't the only first-year players with plenty to show Saturday. Quarterback Drew Lock and defensive tackle Terry Beckner Jr., considered the top recruits in Missouri and Illinois, respectively, headline the Tigers' 2015 recruiting class.
Lock, in particular, was impressive. The Lee's Summit grad completed 14-of-19 passes for 139 yards and two touchdowns, showing comfort as he ran the offense - something he lacked the day before.
"He came up to me yesterday during dinner and told me he was a little bit nervous," said center and team captain Evan Boehm, a fellow Lee's Summit native. "But I just told him there was nothing to be nervous about: "Just go out there and play football. You're here for a reason, and you're playing SEC division one football for a reason. Just go out and show people why.' I think he came out there and did it and he had a very good day."
Lock's first pass was a 15-yard completion to Johnson. A handful of his five incompletions were on-target throws that were dropped.
His first touchdown was a 14-yard pass to Doherty, his second an 11-yard connection to Reese.
"Drew's great," starting cornerback Aarion Penton said. "He has great pocket presence, calm, doesn't worry about the D ends or the blitzing and he just finds the open man and he zips it in there."
Lock's sixth-string status on the depth chart is presumably a formality, as no true freshman is listed higher than last on the most recent chart, released Aug. 6. Many consider Lock to be current Missouri quarterback Maty Mauk's heir apparent.
Though Mauk knows as well as anyone turnover at quarterback can come sooner than expected.
"When James (Franklin) went down, I had to be ready to go," Mauk said, referring to a four-game stretch Franklin missed due to injury in 2013. "Say something happens - I don't want it to happen, but if something does, the next guys have to be ready."
Though most of Lock's production Saturday came against a third-string-and-lower defense, his tools on offense were equally far down the depth chart.
"From a quarterback standpoint, it's probably more (important) who's going against you" on defense, Pinkel said. "So there's a lot of things ... we've got to take into consideration that I would suggest you might not into consideration."
The 6-foot-4, 300-pound Beckner, an East St. Louis grad, spent a good deal of time Saturday playing with the second-string defense - despite not being listed on the depth chart. The five-star recruit tallied one tackle and half a sack.
"I believe he's definitely coming along, and part of it's really conditioning, getting up to the college speed in terms of being able to go play after play," defensive end Charles Harris said. "... He's definitely picked up within the last week or so, just like (freshman lineman) Nate (Howard) has and just really got on the train. Motors are starting to kick up, and they're starting to get passion and feelings into the game."
The defensive line, dealing with attrition that mirrors the receiving corps', led the defense to six sacks, 17 tackles for loss and four quarterback hurries in the scrimmage.
Across the line of scrimmage, the Tigers' bounty of experience on offensive line didn't exactly show. The line struggled at times with protection, and Missouri had five pre-snap penalties on offense. Senior Connor McGovern added another penalty, a hold.
"I'm going to remind you that we were the worst penalized team last year ever that I've ever coached. Ever, by far," Pinkel said. "And so we've been working on that. We had a lot of line-of-scrimmage problems today. ... We've got to fix that. That's Missouri beating Missouri."
He wasn't kidding. The Missouri defense beat the Missouri offense in the situational scrimmage, 19-7.
Notes: Johnson injured his ankle when he was tackled out of bounds after his long snag. He immediately signaled for medical attention, but Pinkel did not know how serious the injury was. ... Andrew Baggett did not play in the scrimmage because of a strained back. Ian Simon, Andy Bauer, Thomas Richard and Richaud Floyd also missed the scrimmage due to injury. ... Tailback Morgan Steward, still recovering from a hip injury that sidelined him all of last season, saw the field frequently, running nine times for 17 yards and catching three passes. ... Missouri was 2-for-3 on field goals. Jackson hit from 22 yards and Nick Coffman missed from 44 yards and was good from 21. ... Thomas Wilson had the day's only takeaway, a fumble recovery on a botched lateral pass he returned 46 yards.