Well, overall I think this was a fine day for Gabbert even though he made the mistake that ultimately cost them the game. The guy showed why he's a high 1st round prospect, and he also showed the warts I talked about. His ball placement on the short stuff was not perfect, it never really is. He works in a spread offense so you're not going to see the guy go through to 4th reads like a Devlin or Yates, just not the design of the offense.
We're talking about 41 of 54 for 437 yards, 2 TDs (1 rushing), 2 INTs. One of those INTs was not at all his fault (the one that ended the 1st Half), he put the ball right on the guy in stride, tight coverage but the ball was THERE...the guy pops it up. Can't say I'm surprised by that.
I think you see what I mean by being let down by his offense and receivers at times. They made plays tonight, in fact more plays than I was used to seeing in the Mizzou tapes I scoured...but they also let Gabbert down. That popped up interception was purely the receiver's fault and it cost a TOUCHDOWN. The other interception was also on the receiver for doing (drum roll please), exactly what I said they tend NOT to do which is to react to Gabbert's scramble and UNCOVER. This was a point of contention between Slimm and I, he felt like in the games he'd watched that the Mizzou receivers were good at uncovering and/or coming back to help him, I felt just the opposite in the games I watched, that they never do it, that most often they do exactly what his WR did on that play...stand like a bump on a log.
This guy was putting on a clinic until he did something he might not have done the entire year. He's scrambling, and instead of making a safe decision with the ball, he threw into a dicey situation and just plain misfired, paid for it in blood. But if you notice, a lot of what he did tonight was because he knew he was being watched. You look at his footwork on the drop...that was for the scouts. He's been sluggish with that all year long but in the month leading up to this game it looks to me like he knew what the scouts would want to see and he practiced it.
But you know what's awesome about that? His footwork was better, and it led to BETTER ACCURACY. He was a more accurate passer tonight than I had seen him. This guy's upside is tremendous. Don't let that ONE bad decision/throw fool you, he made more than enough super impressive throws throughout the night, and that interception was kind of uncharacteristic of what he does on the scramble. If you go back and watch the tapes, you'll see TONS of scrambles, and TONS of safe decision making on the scramble, with also a good amount of making positive plays.
