“What could I necessarily squeeze out of him?” Lock said last week regarding how the offensive coordinator hire would affect his decision. “What could I learn from him, rather than jumping ahead, possibly missing the opportunity to learn from a great mind that may have been in the NFL, may have coached really good NFL quarterbacks?”

In case you’ve forgotten, that’s where Drew Lock left off in discussing his decision to stay at Mizzou for his senior season or depart for the pros. Now that Missouri has made its offensive coordinator hire — Derek Dooley, in case you’ve been entirely off the grid for three days — Lock is on the clock. He has one more week to make his decision.

We obviously don’t (and won’t) know much information about how this hire came about — did a bunch of guys turn Barry Odom down? Did Dooley kick total butt in the interview, to the point of changing the direction of the search? Dooley has been around plenty of good offenses in his career, and as offensive coordinator he won’t be tasked with some of the things that took down his Tennessee coaching tenure (namely, defense). But it still seems a bit of a leap of faith for Odom.

Dooley’s selection is surprising if for only one reason. Two, actually. He’s never been an offensive coordinator and never coached quarterbacks as his primary assignment.

Gabe at PowerMizzou talked to a Tennessee Rivals writer about the hire, and he had some kind words (which probably wasn’t a given), and there’s this take from the Dallas media, which suggests Dooley’s been planning a move like this for a while. But now that the initial Mizzou Internet freakout has subsided, it’s really hard to have any take on this. We just have to wait and see what Dooley has in mind for adding onto what Josh Heupel had put together. It’ll be a lot easier for him to build onto something if he has an all-conference senior QB in tow.

More Links:

• Did you catch the highlights of Mizzou’s Sunday win over South Carolina? Intense game.

• A little too intense, actually.

Do better, Mizzou fans.

• PowerMizzou’s got an updated football scholarship chart for you if you’re tracking what’s left for February’s signing period (and how many departures to expect).
• Hayden Buckley, back-to-back New Year’s Invitational champ.
• Your 2018 Mizzou Softball schedule, hot off the presses.
• Mizzou Swimming & Diving has both the women’s (No. 10) and men’s (No. 15) teams pretty highly ranked at the moment. But Texas A&M (No. 1 and No. 9, respectively) is better and beat both Tigers teams in Saturday duals. The men beat SMU, though.