'He Was Courageous': Pribula Details Injury Comeback for Mizzou

The fact that Beau Pribula started against the Oklahoma Sooners in Week 13 of the college football season was beyond impressive.

After suffering a seemingly gruesome injury in the Missouri Tigers' matchup with the Vanderbilt Commodores on Oct. 25, it looked like Pribula would miss the remainder of the season.

Pribula thought the same on a more extreme level, questioning how long it would be before he could even walk again. Now, he's set to start in his second straight game against the Arkansas Razorbacks, just weeks after his injury.

"When it happened at Vanderbilt and I was on that cart, I didn't think I was going to be able to even walk again for a long time," Pribula said to the media. "I think realistically, once we figured out that nothing was broken, I was not weight-bearing for about two weeks."

To work through that recovery at such a fast pace is impressive in and of itself. It was never going to be easy working through it in the offseason if he was ruled out for the rest of the regular season, making coming back as quickly as he did even more remarkable.

His potential for reinjury also made his return a risk. Knowing that was a possibility made his return a sign of bravery.

"I thought he was courageous," head coach Eli Drinkwitz told the media on Tuesday. "Didn't have any issues taking off running. I thought he did a nice job of understanding the environment, the system, putting us in the right situation."

Pribula's chances of returning ramped up after he was able to regain the ability to walk. Walking turned into jogging, then removing his boot, and then eventually getting back on the field.

"Once I was able to start walking again and we were able to gradually go from walking to jogging and out of the boot and everything, that's when it kind of became realistic," Pribula said.

With the help of the training staff, Pribula was able to cautiously push himself until he felt comfortable returning to the football field. They were cautious in the recovery, but aggressive at the same time to make sure he was progressing.

"It's every day, pushing to see how far I can go without being too aggressive, but we were able to do it," Pribula said. "For some reason, I just was able to heal really fast, and we were able to do more and more rehab each day."

There were certainly moments of positivity in the Tigers' offensive outing against the Sooners. Multiple moments in the passing game throughout the matchup had glimpses of hope with Pribula at the helm, despite not reaching the end zone once.

At the same time, Pribula felt more than comfortable operating the offense in terms of his injury recovery. That was one positive that came out of an ugly offensive performance.

"I thought we had good rhythm going, and then we stalled early in the second half, but were able to kind of put drives together again towards the end," Pribula said. "But I felt pretty comfortable going through progressions."

Despite the resilience Pribula showed in his first start back, the Tigers did not do enough on offense to have any chance at winning the game. Missouri's offense stalled just about every time it touched the field and did not take advantage of opportunities that the defense gifted it.

Pribula went 20-for-36 on his passing attempts, with 231 passing yards and two interceptions. Oklahoma does have one of the best defensive groups in the country, but that doesn't change the fact that Missouri's offense wasn't able to muster much of anything.

"Ultimately, we didn't do enough in the third quarter," Drinkwitz said. "I thought our defense kept giving us opportunities. Didn't get any type of movement there."

Pribula will get one more start in the regular season against the Arkansas Razorbacks, kicking off at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at Donald W. Reynolds Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

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