Since this is the first version of these, I’ll give a little explanation. I don’t want to copy 10 thoughts, so there will be some key differences.

My plan is four or five things rattling around my head about the football team or men’s basketball team depending on the season, two or three things about other Mizzou sports and a couple of questions I have for you guys to finish off. I have a lot of topics I would love your guys’ opinions on just about more general life stuff. So the questions won’t often be directly sports related.

First things first, I have spent a lot of words talking about Brady Cook’s performance Saturday and how I’ve seen the progression of his career the past three seasons.

But let’s dive a little deeper into where he stands among Mizzou quarterbacks because it seems like people might not realize how high he’s going to finish in a lot of career stats.

With Saturday’s performance, Cook passed 9,000 total offensive yards and he passed 8,000 career passing yards against UMass.

He sits in fourth in Tiger history in both and needs about 500 more passing yards to reach third and pass Brad Smith.

He won’t reach Drew Lock in second at 12,193 or Chase Daniel at the top with 12,515, but third all time in passing yards is a pretty good place to end up.

He’s currently fifth in passing touchdowns with 46. With at least five games left, and hopefully at least a couple more, he’ll almost certainly pass James Franklin at 51 and has a good chance to surpass Smith at 56. Again, he won’t reach Lock (99) or Daniel (101), but third or fourth in total passing touchdowns. Add in rushing touchdowns where he’ll almost certainly end fourth. Cook is at 66, Franklin has 77 and Smith has 101 to Lock’s 108 and Daniel’s 111.

I get that Cook doesn’t always look like a great quarterback, but even just in passing stats he’s going to be one of the all-time greats at Missouri statistically. Add in the team success he’s been at the helm of last year and depending on how this year ends up, he’s going to be among the greats when people look back at his time with the program.

But Cook wasn’t the only person responsible for the comeback on Saturday. We’ve got to give a lot of credit to the defense and how it’s played for most of the season.

The coverage bust issue came up again on one play, but outside of the 47-yard passing touchdown, the Tiger defense allowed only 129 passing yards on 16 completions out of 28 attempts.

The unit also allowed only 110 rushing yards to an offense that had been averaging 165.5 rushing yards per game and a running back in Jarquez Hunter who had neered 100 yards against Oklahoma and Georgia the past two weeks.

He averaged on 3.0 yards per carry against the Tigers, which was less than he was averaging AFTER CONTACT coming into the game.

Outside of the Texas A&M game and a couple of blown coverages, the Tiger defense has been fantastic this season. I know you can’t just remove the worst parts of a performance and say the overall performance was good. The Texas A&M game was real bad and the coverage busts are a serious issue. If they continue this week, the Tigers are going to get schooled by a 17-year old true freshman, but with how much the defense lost from last year’s team, I have to give flowers where they are due. The Tiger defense and Corey Batoon have been very good this season and they kept Missouri in the game long enough Saturday to give Cook the chance to come back in and be the hero.

Let’s look at something that has seemed like an issue this season, kicking.

I think this might be a case of fans and media spoiled by the Thiccer Kicker the past few years. It had become assumed the Tigers could make most field goals from 50ish yards or farther, and Blake Craig definitely has the leg for it.

He already tied Mevis for the fourth and fifth longest distances for Tiger field goals ever and 56 and 54 yards. As a redshirt freshman, he’s already tied for fourth on Missouri’s all-time leaderboard of 50+-yard field goals with three. He’s tied with Tucker McCann, is one behind Jeff Jacke in third and three behind Tom Whelihan for second. Harrison Mevis leads the way with 12.

He’s had his misses, and they don’t look good when they happen, especially in close games. Missing three against Vanderbilt and two against Auburn is a bad look.

But I think that’s a product of opportunity. The Tigers lead the SEC with 15 field goals made, which is more than 10 conference opponents have even attempted. Craig has 22 attempts this year, five more than Vanderbilt, which is in second as a team at 17.

The Tigers have asked a lot of a 19-year old playing his first games. It reminds me a lot of my time as a student at Oklahoma State when they used a freshman Ben Grogan to kick in 2013 and he promptly missed 6-of-17 attempts that season. Students were begging for open tryouts just to get anyone else an opportunity.

Grogen ended up with the most made field goals in OSU history with 68, eight more than the second-place finisher who followed him and 11 more than Dan Bailey who went on to become one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history.

I’ve fallen into the trap again of thinking kickers should make it almost every time they are sent out. Kicking continues to get better and guys are regularly hitting 50+-yard tries all over the country.

So I’ll take some blame here for one of my initial thoughts after the game being Craig’s kicking issues. It took a second to remember that he won’t turn 20 until next week and there’s plenty of time for him to use that monster leg of his to become a really good kicker.

My final football thought this week is this game is must win.

I didn’t think that coming into the season, I assumed a one- or two-loss Missouri team would be right in line for the playoff since half the SEC might make it into the 12-team field.

But the way the Texas A&M loss happened might have counted for both losses I was granting the Tigers this season.

Add in that Alabama is no longer a top-5 team dominating everyone but Georgia, and this has become a game the Tigers can’t lose if they want to achieve the biggest goals possible for this season.

The schedule isn’t strong enough to make up for another loss. Not to say it isn’t looking a little better than expected from here on out because South Carolina and Arkansas both look better than expected, but Oklahoma certainly looks worse than planned, too.

The fact that Mizzou has dropped in the rankings after TWO conference wins now is ridiculous to me. Especially now that Vanderbilt has worked its way into the top-25 and the Tigers played without their starting quarterback for most of the game Saturday. I don’t understand how those equate to a combined four-spot drop in the AP rankings. But they did.

So the Tigers have a lot of work to do to climb back into the top-11 or so if they want to make the playoff.

That has to start this week with a win against Alabama, handing the Crimson Tide their third loss in four weeks and erasing them from the conversation. Plus if the Tigers can give Alabama its third loss, that means the Tigers are much closer to the SEC Championhsip game and the auto-bid it provides.

Texas A&M and LSU play this week, so one of the undefeateds (in conference play) has to lose. A&M also plays Texas the final week of the season. I would say Mizzou fans have to root for LSU and Texas in those matchups. Have to take A&M out of the tiebreaker zone with Mizzou.

Which means Texas will likely end with only one loss, unless Vanderbilt decides to continue being a giant killer or Arkansas/Florida/Kentucky can luck into one.

LSU still plays Alabama, Florida, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, I could see two losses in there.

Georgia still has to play Florida, Ole Miss and Tennessee in conference play. There certainly could be a loss in there, and if there isn’t that means Tennessee gets loss No. 2.

If the Tigers beat Alabama this week, there are legitimate paths to the conference championship and back into the playoff just on rankings. But it has to start now.

First off, Mizzou volleyball is on a hot streak!

The Tigers have won four consecutive matches and looked pretty dominant doing it. Missouri added three conference wins in that stretch.

Out of the Tigers’ five losses this season, three have come against teams ranked in the top-15.

Jordan Iliff is capping her career with a fantastic season, surpassing 50 aces and reaching seventh on Mizzou’s all-time leaderboard for a single season with 10 matches left to play.

After two very down seasons, it seems like Dawn Sullivan has orchestrated a pretty quick turnaround for the program in her first two years, going 18-13 last year and setting up for an even better season this year as we get into the final third of the season.

Women’s basketball media day is set for this week.

I’m expecting to get a chance to interview a handful of players and coach Robin Pingeton on Thursday.

I’ve got my ideas, but let’s get a sports-related question out here in the thoughts instead of the questions. Are there any specific players you all would want to read a feature on?

Like I said, I’ve got some plans and I don’t think they will follow the fresh faces line that I’ve been doing for the men’s basketball team just because most of the key players are returners. But if there are any players you’d specifically like to hear about in the coming weeks as the season gets started, let me know. I’d be happy to do my best to tell their stories.

The first question I have for you guys is book related.

I’m a big reader and I have a feeling a lot of people in a group that pays to regularly get extra reading material probably are, too.

I just started reading “Stormin Back” Norm Stewart and John Dewey’s book from amid the early 90s NCAA sanction of the program. I’ll be done with it within a week or two and I’m on the hunt for more books. If you guys have ones about Missouri sports you like, I’d be happy to hear about them.

I generally enjoy most sports and history books so I’m open to non-Mizzou related suggestions, too.

I know 10 thoughts had reading suggestions, but my question is, do you have any reading suggestions for me?

My second question is more Columbia based.

I’ve lived in Jefferson City most of the past three years and moved to Columbia full time over the summer, so I’m still pretty new to town. My girlfriend has been in Columbia a long time and knows a lot of great places to go and things to do, but I’d love to branch out even more.

So my question is, what are your must-go places in Columbia? Either for those who live here or for people who have places they HAVE to go to when they are back in town. I’m open to hearing about them all.

Head on over to the Tiger Walk to help me out with your answers and discuss this and so much more.