Brady Cook believes Missouri still has something to prove
Although offseason expectations are the highest they’ve been for Missouri in years, Brady Cook still believes the Tigers have something to prove. Mizzou comes in at No. 6 overall in the preseason SEC poll after being picked sixth in just the SEC East Division in 2023.
The excitement is the product of an 11-2 finish this past season, the Tigers’ best record in almost a decade, and Cotton Bowl win against Ohio State. They return a number of key players from that run, including Cook, who will be back for his fifth season in Columbia and his third as a starter.
But while last season’s success is the reason for this year’s hype, Cook knows Mizzou has to start with a fresh mindset. In a way, he feels they have just as much to show the rest of the country now as they did then.
“Last year our motto formed into something to prove,” he said at SEC Media Days. “I’m sure you guys have heard it. We lived by it, and we still do. Although we had a good year last year and accomplished a few things, we still have to go out and prove it this year. For the guys that came back, for the team we have now, 2024 is all that matters.
“That’s the record that’s going to be talked about. These are the games that’s going to be talked about. No one is going to talk about the Cotton Bowl versus Ohio State moving forward. It’s in the past. It’s in the history books.”
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Cook finished this past season with a career-best 3,317 yards passing for 21 touchdowns and six interceptions. He’ll get his top two receivers from last season back in Theo Wease Jr. and Luther Burden, the latter of whom was a first team preseason All-SEC selection.
The Tigers also have a fairly favorable schedule, as they are the only SEC program to play all of the bottom four teams in the preseason poll. That said, Cook isn’t taking anything as a given.
“We have to go out and prove it every single week,” he said. “No one’s going to hand it to us. No one’s going to give us any free handouts. Us, Mizzou, we have to go earn it, we have to go prove it.”
Missouri kicks off the 2024 season on Aug. 29 against Murray State.