Mizzou football kicks off fall camp at new indoor practice facility
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The start to the new season came in a new building FIR on Monday morning. The Mizzou football team completed the first practice of fall camp in the newly-built Stephen's Indoor Practice Facility due to the rain.
Coaches and players brought a lot of energy for the first official day of the 2023 season. The veterans, specifically, were shining. Junior wide receiver Mookie Cooper led the team in the traditional 'Tiger Jacks,' which comes at the start of every practice.
You can watch extended highlights from practice in the video player below.
As head coach Eli Drinkwitz announced at SEC Media Days in the middle of July, junior Brady Cook took the first snaps with the ones at practice. However, the competition for starting quarterback is still open. Miami-transfer Jake Garcia and rising sophomore Sam Horn will be some stiff competition.
Both Horn and Garcia were confident talking to the media on report day, on Sunday.
Horn said his one and only goal, besides a couple personal ones, is to win the starting job. He added it's all about keeping it simple with the talent that MU has at wide receiver.
"Those guys are really good athletes, I mean everybody knows it. My job is to get the ball to them and let them create the plays," Horn said on Sunday.
Garcia loves to bring explosiveness to an offense. In a one-on-one interview on Sunday, he said he always admired SEC and Missouri football growing up and knew he wanted to be a part of it. When asked to describe his game, he said it's all about getting the ball to the playmakers.
"I want to throw the ball and get it to the fast people out wide, get it to my running back in space, hand the ball off if I have to, you know what I'm saying," Garcia said. "At the end of the day, the big thing is winning."
Cook returned to action for the first time since the Tigers' bowl game. He was limited through all of spring camp due to shoulder surgery. The St. Louis-native played through a torn labrum all of 2022, but he said he's excited to get back on the field.
"It's been a while since the bowl game. You know, individual-wise, I just want to improve deep ball accuracy, I want to make more explosive plays down the field and I just wanted to connect on more deep balls," he said.
The quarterbacks will have quite a few guys to work with in that receiver room that Horn spoke so highly of. New talent includes Oklahoma-transfer Theo Wease and Ole Miss-transfer Dannis Jackson. Mizzou also will return standouts Luther Burden, Cooper and Mekhi Miller.
Defensively, MU returned most of its veterans, including defensive linemen Darius Robinson and Jayden Jernigan, defensive backs Kris Abrams-Draine, Ennis Rakestraw and Joseph Charleston, along with many others.
It will be the second season that the defense has worked in coordinator Blake Baker's scheme, which will provide some continuity.
"It feels comfortable because we all know what we're playing for, our alignments, our assignments and we're just going out there and working hard," Robinson said.
The Tigers will continue camp on Tuesday morning.
