Brady Cook shows he could be Mizzou Tigers quarterback of future in Armed Forces Bowl
For most quarterbacks in their first collegiate start, the situation may have been a bit too much to handle. Too much pressure. Too much on the line. But that wasn’t the case for redshirt freshman Brady Cook.
The Missouri Tigers were down five points to Army with a little under three minutes left in the Armed Forces Bowl on Wednesday night at Amon G. Carter Stadium. The ball on their own 17-yard line. No timeouts.
“This is it,” Cook recalled thinking. “This is why we play football.”
Cook threw three consecutive passes to start the drive, each to a different receiver, each resulting in at least a 12-yard gain. He completed five pass attempts for 66 yards as he marched Mizzou down the field in a hurry. And then, on second-and-goal at the 6, he fired the ball into the hands of wide receiver Keke Chism in the middle of the end zone for a touchdown. It only took Cook a minute and a half to drive his team 83 yards and the Tigers back on top.
The Tigers ultimately lost, 24-22, after a failed two-point conversion and an Army field goal, but Cook showed optimism for the future of the quarterback position — which, by the way, also adds four-star recruit Sam Horn next season.
All season long, Mizzou fans were clamoring to see someone else play at quarterback besides starter Connor Bazelak. The redshirt sophomore threw 11 interceptions to just 16 touchdowns and often lacked explosive, big play ability.
They got their wish Wednesday night. It wasn’t a perfect performance by any means, but it was better production than the Tigers had seen from the quarterback position all season. The next morning, Bazelak announced his intention to transfer.
Cook finished 27 of 34 passing (79%) for 238 yards and a touchdown. He also had 53 rushing yards and a score on nine carries. He never turned the ball over.
“I thought he played really well,” Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz said. “Very calm, collected, had great composure. You know, did a really nice job on that last drive to give us a chance to win the game.”
A St. Louis native who grew up rooting for Missouri and dreaming of one day playing for the Tigers, Cook seized the opportunity his first career start presented from the opening drive of the game. With a little over 12 minutes left in the quarter, he turned on the jets and sprinted 30 yards into the end zone on an option keep. No defender came close to catching him.
That score, which put the Tigers up 7-0, was the first 30-yard touchdown run by a Mizzou quarterback since Blaine Gabbert in 2010, according to MU historian Tom Orf.
The Tigers scored on every single drive of the first half, but not by way of touchdowns. Harrison Mevis made field goals of 22, 25 and 39 yards on the following three trips.
“We just didn’t put the ball in the end zone enough,” Cook said. “Can’t win a game like this doing that. You gotta put the ball in the end zone.”
In addition to being without the team’s best player, running back Tyler Badie, and any of the team’s top three tight ends, Cook didn’t have great protection throughout the night. He was sacked for a loss of six on third down in the red zone later in the first quarter, as well as in another pivotal moment on third-and-10 on the second-to-last drive of the game.
“We needed to do a better job protecting him,” Drinkwitz said.
It seemed as if the game was over at that point, but the defense came up with another stop. Cook and the offense had one more chance, and he came through. At least for the touchdown. The Tigers’ two-point conversion was another story.
“It was a play that we’ve repped a bunch of times,” Cook said. “I felt comfortable with it. I felt some interior pressure and went to the tailback Dawson Downing and he was there. I just misjudged it, it looked like — yeah, I just misjudged it. It was a bad throw.”
That one may have been a bad throw, but there weren’t many of those from Cook on Wednesday night. And that’s something that surely couldn’t be said for the quarterback position for much of the 2021 season.
