Why QB Brady Cook said ‘it’s just not good enough’ after Missouri’s win in SEC opener

Heading into Saturday, quarterback Brady Cook was adamant that the best was yet to come from Missouri’s offense.

After Mizzou’s Southeastern Conference opener, it appears the best is still yet to come.

The seventh-ranked Tigers narrowly avoided an upset against perennial SEC bottom-feeder Vanderbilt in a 30-27 double-overtime victory Saturday evening at Memorial Stadium, offering an offensive performance that left a bad taste in the mouth of Missouri fans, coaches and players alike.

“It’s just not good enough,” quarterback Brady Cook said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Starting field position certainly wasn’t the Tigers’ issue. On three different occasions, the Tigers began a drive from their own 47-yard line. Each time, however, Missouri’s offense stalled, turning a trio of golden opportunities into a combined three points — thanks to redshirt-freshman kicker Blake Craig’s 23-yard field goal with 1:17 remaining in the first half.

On their opening drive of the game, the Tigers netted just a single yard from their 47 before being forced to punt.

Missouri (4-0, 1-0) totaled just 78 yards across those three possessions despite the optimal field position. Vanderbilt (2-2, 0-1) held MU to 17 points on four red-zone appearances.

Moving the football wasn’t a huge issue for the Tigers either — Missouri put up 442 yards of total offense with 22 first downs. Despite their efforts, though, the Tigers struggled to consistently find the end zone, settling for just two touchdowns on four red-zone attempts.

Outside of Luther Burden III’s 20-yard touchdown reception late in the first quarter, Missouri did not find the end zone on a single red-zone trip in the first half. Twice the Tigers drove inside the Vanderbilt 10-yard line, and twice they were forced to settle for a field-goal attempt.

Craig converted one of the two red-zone attempts. The reigning SEC special teams player of the week missed three total kicks on the night — from 24, 40 and 46 yards.

Late in the first half, the Tigers had possession at the Vanderbilt 6-yard line with an opportunity to reach the end zone. But an ill-fated Cook pass intended for a tightly covered Mehki Miller on third down held the Tigers to just three points. Earlier in the quarter, Missouri’s offense marched all the way to the Commodes’ 6-yard line but failed to convert on a third-down keeper by Cook, leading to Craig’s missed chip shot from 24 yards out.

At the 20-yard line in the second overtime, the Tigers’ inefficiency to turn possessions into touchdowns struck again when Cook could not find Burden in the end zone. Burden battled through double coverage but could not make a play on the deep pass.

“It was two-high coverage,” Cook said of the pass postgame. “The guy that carried Luther was underneath of him, and I thought our best opportunity was to give him a chance right at the goalpost, really see if he can go up and make a play. Obviously, it didn’t turn out that way.”

The missed opportunity led to Craig’s 37-yard field goal, which proved to be the deciding score.

“Not good enough in the red zone, for sure, when we’re kicking that many field goals,” Mizzou coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “We’ve got to take a hard look at what we’re doing in the red area and figure out why we can’t sustain drives and why we’re not able to convert third downs.”

Missouri finished the day just 7-for-17 on third-down conversions, a conversion rate of 41.2%. Cook completed just 5 of 10 passes and was sacked twice on third downs in the narrow win .

Game management was also an area of struggle for the Tigers, something that was perhaps most obvious at the end of the first half.

After the Tigers forced a Vanderbilt punt, they started a drive at their own 27-yard line with 52 seconds remaining, with aspirations of converting a go-ahead field goal before halftime. Missouri quickly moved the ball downfield but stalled near midfield.

The Tigers, with the clock running and under 20 seconds to go in the half, could have let the clock drain out. Instead, they opted to go for it on fourth-and-3 from their own 47-yard line, and when quarterback Brady Cook was swallowed up for a sack, Vanderbilt flipped the script and drilled a 57-yard field goal of its own. Instead of entering halftime tied at 10 apiece, the Commodores grabbed a 13-10 advantage at the break.

“Totally my fault,” Drinkwitz said of the fourth-down decision. “That was a really haphazard decision by me, and the team bailed me out. Bottom line, I’ve got to be much better.”

At the end of regulation, in an eerily similar situation, Missouri had a fourth-and-1 at the Vanderbilt 47-yard line. Drinkwitz opted to punt the ball back to Vanderbilt with 49 seconds remaining, averting another potential turnover on downs in a key situation. The decision paid off, as the Commodores took a knee and sent the game to overtime, where the Tigers came from behind to win.

Despite the red-zone struggles, Missouri’s offense escaped the tightly contest SEC showdown. After a bye week, the Tigers next embark on their first road trip of the season against Texas A&M at 11 a.m. on Oct. 5 at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.

For Drinkwitz, however, the upcoming opponent is the last thing on his mind entering the bye week.

“The furthest thing from everybody’s mind is going to be Texas A&M,” Drinkwitz said. “We’ve got to go take a good look at the Missouri Tigers.”