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COLUMBIA, Mo. — Sixty one points for the home team, six for the visitors, yet the Missouri Tigers seemed more than a little sick about what they lost in their season-opening win over Central Arkansas.

Quarterback Beau Pribula logged a strong debut through the air and on the ground, running back Ahmad Hardy picked up 100 yards in his first game and the Mizzou defense didn’t allow a point until the Bears scored with 22 seconds left in the contest. There’s real optimism to be gained from a result like Thursday’s 61-6 win, even against a Football Championship Subdivision opponent.

And there was also a real damper on the postgame mood.

Pribula all but locked up MU’s starting quarterback job, in part through his play but mostly because Sam Horn, with whom he was supposed to split time during the final stage of their quarterback competition, suffered a significant leg injury during the first half.

Starting placekicker Blake Craig was also injured, and the possibility of him missing time would greatly affect the Tigers’ special teams operations.

“Those two things are really disappointing,” Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “We’ll see (Friday) what the extent of those injuries is.

Horn was hurt on a first-half rushing attempt. Despite being scheduled to quarterback the Mizzou offense during the second half, he checked in for a wildcat-style play, picking up six yards on what Drinkwitz called “a heck of a run.”

After the play, Horn was helped to the locker room, later spotted on crutches with a full leg brace and ruled out in the third quarter. It’s a particularly brutal occurrence for a two-sport athlete who has signed a professional contract to pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers and who had only just returned from a year away recovering from Tommy John surgery.

“(Horn) was voted captain because his teammates care about him,” Drinkwitz. "You hurt for the young man because last year was taken away from him for a different reason. This year, he’s going to have to face another injury, and don’t know how long it’ll be. There’s something that wears you down mentally in those things. Can’t second-guess it. You just gotta face it every day, and we’ll face it with him.”

Craig’s injury came when he was hit on a kickoff, and he was also helped to the locker room. True freshman Robert Meyer kicked extra points in his absence.

Those injuries loomed large over what was otherwise a solid team-wide showing from Mizzou.

Pribula, known more for his rushing ability than his arm, uncorked a 49-yard touchdown to wide receiver Marquis Johnson on his first pass of the game. The Penn State transfer put his legs to work, too, on a 31-yard scramble into the end zone in the second quarter, then led two 99-yard scoring drives.

Pribula finished 23-for-28 with 283 passing yards, two passing touchdowns, 72 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. Even under pressure at times, he looked fluid in escaping the pocket, powerful as a runner and crisp when distributing the ball.

“I knew he prepared well in fall camp,” Drinkwitz said. “I tried to tell everybody that we had two quarterbacks who could win football games. And I fully expected that to be the case.”

Johnson finished with five catches for a career-high 134 yards and one touchdown. Slot receiver Kevin Coleman Jr. led the Tigers with six catches.

While the starters were playing, Mizzou’s backfield wound up a split between Hardy and Jamal Roberts. Hardy was more productive, taking his 10 carries for 100 yards and a touchdown — a stat line boosted by one 44-yard run he broke loose up the seam.

Roberts finished with eight rushes for 33 yards, a tally that would’ve been higher if a 31-yard rush of his hadn’t been wiped off the board due to a holding penalty. As has become the norm for him, the St. Mary’s product came in clutch with some pass protection to save Pribula from a couple more hits than he took.

And while 230 rushing yards spread across the team is hardly an amount to scoff at, the Tigers’ ground game didn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders yet. Some of that — maybe even most of it — came down to a new-look offensive line that had a middling day.

Only one lineman — center Connor Tollison — started in the same position he played last season. Cayden Green slid over to left guard, which proved to be an adjustment. He and new left guard Dominick Giudice let a couple of unblocked pass rushers through in the first half, and that tandem limited the effectiveness of MU’s beloved outside zone runs.

“For whatever reason, we weren’t really able to get the back side sealed off on our outside zones the way we normally do,” Drinkwitz said. “So that’s got to be a point of emphasis moving forward to create the running lanes we want.”

Given that the starting five along the offensive line emerged late in camp and hadn’t played together in a game until today, perhaps that was to be expected.

“There was some good, bad and some things in between,” Drinkwitz said of the line play. “First couple of drives, we were getting to the second level but we weren’t finishing those blocks. I think there was a couple of mistakes that are from, hey, learning to play new positions and figuring out that unit together. But overall I was pretty pleased.”

Missouri’s next game will come against a tougher opponent and with much higher stakes: The Border War rivalry with Kansas (1-0) resumes at 2:30 p.m. Sept. 6 in Columbia.