Brady Cook shined in leading the Mizzou Tigers to a bowl. Now what? What does it mean?
.JPG "Missouri ‘s Tauskie Dove, left, and Barrett Banister check out the 180-pound Battle Line Trophy after the Tigers defeated Arkansas on Friday in Columbia, Mo.")
On a Friday night earlier this fall, Mizzou quarterback Brady Cook stood in front of his teammates and summarized what he’d learned during some bye-week film study. More specifically, he shared how the Tigers could turn around a 2-4 season that looked destined to end in late November.
His answer, in a word: Himself.
“I’m not gonna leave my defense hanging anymore,” he told them.
Say what you will about a 6-6 regular season — the Tigers provided us with a true test of optimism versus pessimism Friday — but as they clinched the right to play in a bowl game with a 29-27 win against Arkansas, they can point in the same direction Cook pointed last month.
The quarterback.
No, really.
Mizzou won a football game because of its quarterback play, a career night from Cook that featured 242 passing yards and one touchdown and 138 rushing yards and another score. The Tigers put up more points (29) and yards (468) than any SEC game this season against an Arkansas defense run by former Mizzou head coach Barry Odom, securing themselves another month of practice for a young team that now must prepare for a bowl game. (That exact location is to be determined.)
And suddenly, in the span of three weeks, Missouri has shown signs of breaking free from one on its biggest criticisms – justified criticisms, mind you — in the Eli Drinkwitz era.
Progress at the quarterback position.
The quarterback play has too frequently been an impedance in Columbia. Too frequently the reason for the 17-18 record since Drinkwitz took over. The Tigers guaranteed themselves one more game, which will draw the focus of their next month, but Cook pushed forward what’s truly their most important development: What’s next at quarterback?
Was this a sign of progression? Or did Missouri just take advantage of a bad defense?
The truth lies somewhere in the middle, but Drinkwitz won’t have the opportunity to stick somewhere in the middle. He must provide a definitive answer, and it will dictate the potential of a crucial fourth year on the heels of an unusually-timed raise and contract extension this month.
Sam Horn, a four-star recruited freshman, waits, though the fact he has thrown all of two passes in a season in which Mizzou has struggled at the position provided us so clues as to his own progress. A year ago, Drinkwitz scoured the transfer portal in search of an upgrade, but that dance concluded with a lonely hangout by the punch bowl.
Cook has complicated things over the past few weeks, and that’s meant as a compliment. It’s never been his fault he is the best quarterback on this roster, nor did he deserve all of the blame for the 2-4 start, even if he accepted it in front of teammates a month ago. But he has struggled for major portions of the season. That’s real. Questions about Mizzou’s future at that spot weren’t exactly unfounded.
But now?
The top-three rushing totals of Cook’s career have come in the past three games, and, sure, put an asterisk that one of them came against New Mexico State. But he’s also thrown seven touchdowns without an interception in those three games (top-5 Tennessee the third opponent) after his splits were six touchdowns and seven interceptions beforehand.
I’ve long wondered what an Eli Drinkwitz offense — remember, that was the most prominent justification for his arrival in Columbia — would look like with better quarterback play. But it is, of course, his job to give us that look.
We got it from Brady Cook on Friday.
At one point during the game, wide receiver Dominic Lovett was running routes alongside a couple of Arkansas defenders, who he said commented on Cook, “This boy running.”
There’s been clear and obvious improvement, and if you don’t trust the numbers, trust these obvious signs: Mizzou passed the ball on critical third downs against Arkansas. The coaches were aggressive with it, down to the final third-and-4 call to freshman Mehki Miller that all but sealed the game.
Drinkwitz said he didn’t know if that’s a play his team would have called two month earlier.
Hint: it’s not.
But will it be in the future? With this quarterback? Cook showed his ceiling, but he also reminded us that it is indeed just that — his ceiling. He is inaccurate outside the numbers, less accurate on deep throws than most, and Arkansas provided him plenty of opportunity with one-on-one coverage on the outside.
“I said this before, and I’ll say it again: My mindset’s never changed. I know there’s a lot of noise out there. That’s just part of the job of being an SEC quarterback,” Cook said. “I’ll continue to fight for Mizzou. I always will. I love this school. I love this team. I love our coaches. And no outside noise is going to change that. I’m going to keep fighting for this team no matter what.”
Late in the game Friday, after he felt as though they’d finally caught a break, Lovett told his teammates in the huddle, “We’ve had so much bad karma. We just gotta finish.”
It wasn’t karma.
It came from a source perhaps even more foreign to Mizzou this season.
The quarterback.
This story was originally published November 25, 2022 at 8:29 PM.