Missouri’s Brady Cook earns Manning Award Quarterback of the Week

Junior Set SEC Record While Leading Tigers to SEC Win Over Vanderbilt

NEW ORLEANS (October 5, 2023) – Brady Cook has been voted as the week five Manning Award Quarterback of the Week. He earned the honor over seven other Manning Award Stars of the Week in the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s online voting contest.

Cook completed 25 of his first 29 passes as he finished 33-of-41 for 395 yards and four touchdowns in a 38-21 SEC road win over Vanderbilt. He also set the SEC record for consecutive passes without an interception (348) while tallying his career-bests for passing yards and touchdowns. This is the third straight game the St. Louis native has thrown for over 300 yards. Cook is a junior and has one year of eligibility remaining.

This performance helped the Tigers improve to a perfect 5-0, their first 5-0 start since 2013. This weekend, the Tigers will host No. 23 LSU at Memorial Stadium for an 11 a.m. CST kickoff on ESPN.

Cook’s closest competitors in this week’s online voting were Dequan Finn of Toledo and Arkansas State’s Jaylen Raynor. Finn, who added 61 rushing yards and a touchdown, completed 16-of-20 passes for 281 yards including a 68-yard TD pass in the fourth quarter that proved to be the difference as the Rockets held off Northern Illinois in a 35-33 MAC victory. Raynor, who matched the Red Wolves program record for touchdown passes in a game, becomes just the fourth true freshman since 2013 to connect on six TD passes in a game, as he led his team to a 52-28 road win over UMass.

While the Manning Award selected 30 quarterbacks for its preseason Watch List, additional quarterbacks are expected to be added to the Watch List later in the season. Ten finalists will be selected and the winner is scheduled to be announced following the College Football Playoff National Championship.

In its first 19 years, the Manning Award has recognized the top names in college football. It has honored quarterbacks from 14 different schools and from four different conferences. The Southeastern Conference (Stetson Bennett, Bryce Young, Joe Burrow, Mac Jones, Johnny Manziel, Cam Newton, JaMarcus Russell and Tim Tebow) leads the way with eight Manning Award honorees, while the Big 12 Conference (Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Robert Griffin III) has had five winners. The Atlantic Coast Conference (Deshaun Watson twice, Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston) has had four Manning Award winners. Alabama (Bryce Young and Jones), LSU (Burrow and Russell), Oklahoma (Murray and Mayfield), and Texas (McCoy and Vince Young) have each produced a pair of Manning Award winners.

All the Manning Award winners follow in the footsteps of the Mannings themselves. In college, Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning combined for over 25,000 passing yards and 201 touchdowns while playing in 10 bowl games and earning four bowl MVP awards. Archie was the No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft, while both Peyton and Eli were selected No. 1 overall.