Between the Columns: Nov. 18

I was someone who bought into the idea Mizzou would make it in the first 12-team field, too, and because of the expanded field, the non-playoff bowls mean less than they ever had before. They already had lost a lot of prestige after the creation of the CFP, but now the best non-playoff bowls are getting team No. 5 from the SEC or Big 10 instead of team No. 2-3.

But, especially with Brady Cook back and clearly willing to play hampered to get through these final couple of games of his college career, the Tigers have a more-than-realistic chance to win the final two games of the regular season and go into a bowl game 9-3 and most likely ranked again.

It's been a decade since the Tigers won 20 games across two seasons, so as disappointing as this year is, this stretch is still up there among the best in Tiger history.

I think at this point you're looking at the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., or the Las Vegas Bowl.

CBS updated its bowl predictions yesterday and has the Tigers facing Michigan in the Music City Bowl. I know it's not the Cotton Bowl followup everyone was hoping for, but imagine being able to say the Tigers won 11 games in consecutive seasons and beat Ohio State and Michigan in consecutive bowls.

That's a pretty incredible couple of years for a team that catapults a program into a tier of competition it can use as a sell to continue recruiting at a very high level, which leads to better competition, which leads to better recruiting, it all spins up together from there.

ESPN's Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach both have Mizzou in the Las Vegas Bowl facing Arizona State or Washington. That's still fun for me, I haven't been to Vegas as an adult, cool trip, but definitely not the same as facing Michigan. Though beating Washington does still give you the "We beat a team in the previous year's championship" argument. And my best friend works on the Huskies' TV broadcast crew and could probably convince them to let him travel for a bowl game. I might be talking myself into rooting for the Vegas Bowl.

I get being disappointed, the hopes were exceedingly high for this year and the SEC road slate has just demolished then.

But I think when the Tigers got home from the Gasparilla Bowl to celebrate Christmas 2022 after losing 27-17 to Wake Forest and ending a fourth consecutive season at or below .500 while losing the fourth straight bowl the Tigers had made, if someone had told you Missouri would realistically win 20 regular-season games and add on a Cotton Bowl win against Ohio State and maybe another bowl win against one of the teams that played for the 2023 championship, you and everyone else would have been very excited.

2. Brady Cook continues to impress me.

Let's start with this, I was wrong. Sorry about that.

Everything I heard was Brady would be out the rest of the regular season, but I forgot to take into account how much that kid is willing to play through to be on the field for the Missouri Tigers.

And he came back with that extra tape on his wrist to have one of his best games of the season.

His 237 yards is behind only the 264 he had against Boston College, his 67.7 percent completion percentage was fourth highest this season and the highest against an SEC team, he finally hit the first deep ball to Marquis Johnson (slightly under-thrown, but still more than I expected from a guy coming off a throwing-wrist injury) and that throw to Luther Burden for the go-ahead touchdown would have gone down as the play of the season if the Tigers ended up with the win. ...

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