‘What’s important now’: Mizzou baseball implements new identity for 2026 season

Kerrick Jackson wants his team to “WIN.” This does not mean getting the victory, but he does want that, too.

After the 2025 season saw Missouri baseball reach new lows, something had to change. The team brought in new coaches and players, but a plagued mentality remained. Members of the team were stuck on the downfalls of last season, even when there was nothing they could do to change the past.

Jackson coined a new acronym to get the players over the bump and focus on improving in 2026. If they want to focus on what went wrong last season, they can do it in a constructive way.

“We’ve used the acronym ‘what’s important now’ or ‘WIN,’” Jackson explained during a news conference Friday. “So today, what are we doing to put us in a position to win?”

For Jackson, the only thing keeping the Tigers from winning this season is themselves. The team can only control whether it plays to the best of its ability and does things the right way. If the team plays clean baseball and does everything it should, wins should follow.

That is what Jackson hopes results from the new identity created for the 2026 season. And as the season kicks off, Missouri has already been putting that idea into play.

“If we put ourselves in a position to win, which is all that we can control, then they were just better than us today,” Jackson said. “If at the end of the game we look back and we made three errors, we gave up free bases, we struck out too many times with runners in scoring position, we didn’t hit the cut, well, then that’s a you problem.”

Finding the “you problems” and identifying what players could have done better in games, no matter the final score, is how the Tigers plan to put the new mantra into effect. Without figuring out what they did wrong in each game, the Tigers will not be able to evolve throughout the season — and instead could get into a rut again.

“Every day there’s something you need to work on. Every day there is something you can get better at,” graduate pitcher Javyn Pimental said. “That’s just been something we’ve been kind of harping on everybody.”

For this to work, the players need to be committed and willing to reflect on mistakes. Veteran Tigers like Pimental and junior catcher Mateo Serna, who have been with Mizzou since 2023 and 2024, respectively, are leading the charge on that focus.

“We have to be able to fix (those issues),” Jackson said. “So being able to really be honest with them and have them look in the mirror (and say), ’What happened? Do they beat us, or did we lose?’”

In past seasons, the Tigers have used the “NOW” acronym, meaning “no opportunity wasted.” That identity isn’t going anywhere. With NOW, Jackson wanted his players to relish what they had and take full advantage of every chance. This season, he wants his players to build on that with a new identity.

“We’re the underdogs,” Serna said. “We’re in the Midwest. We want to do what we’ve been doing the whole fall and the whole early spring, which is like getting better every day and just getting connected and having fun on the field. (It’s all) really important.”

With less than a week until the Tigers take the field, Serna and the team will soon get to test their “WIN” mentality. The hope is the Tigers can build toward a productive run in Southeastern Conference play.

“I think the biggest thing is the idea of understanding just that, of playing good baseball,” Jackson said. “Don’t worry about what the outcome is, because we can’t control the outcome. We can go out and not walk anybody, have quality at-bats, play really good defense and lose 2-1. Don’t get wrapped up into what the end result is.”

Whether the wins come now or later, the Tigers believe this process will help them be the best they can in the long run.

“It’s gonna happen when it happens,” Jackson said.

Mizzou opens its season at 5 p.m. Friday against Mt. Saint Mary’s in Ft. Myers, Florida.

Copyright 2026 Columbia Missourian