Who will be Missouri's starting QB in 2023? Exploring the battle between Brady Cook, Sam Horn, and Jake Garcia

The Missouri Tigers went 6-7 last season and saw three different quarterbacks attempt passes.

Although Brady Cook played in 13 games and was the starter last year, he is not guaranteed to be numero uno this year. Instead, the starting quarterback job will be a three-way race between Cook, Sam Horn, and Jake Garcia.

With all three capable of the task that looms ahead, head coach Eli Drinkwintz has maintained that it is still an open competition.

"The only thing better than a little competition is a lot of competition and we just know that Brady [Cook] did a really solid job for us, but we have to play better at a lot of different places in order to get to where we want to be. We are not satisfied with being a .500 football team. We’ve got to improve and everybody has to raise their level of play,” Drinkwitz said on WJOX 94.5 FM. “Brady missed the spring with an injury, so Jake [Garcia] was able to get accustomed, Sam [Horn] missed the spring with a baseball injury and he finished the last few weeks at full speed.”

Missouri's quarterback room adds high-profile transfer

Missouri Tigers had moderate success last season with Brady Cook as the starting quarterback.

However, the Tigers added former Miami Hurricane quarterback Jake Garcia to the room. Garcia is a former top-25 recruit in the Class of 2021 who redshirted his first season at Miami in 2021 and played eight games last year. In his lone start last year, he led the Hurricanes to a win over Virginia.

Outside of Cook and Garcia, Sam Horn is a highly-regarded recruit from Georgia but decided to go to Missouri to play football and baseball. He was in the running to be an MLB draft pick out of high school before committing to Missouri.

Who is the favorite?

The starting quarterback competition does seem like it is Brady Cook's to lose, but in reality, it is a two-horse race between Cook and Garcia.

Garcia transferred as he was promised a chance to win the starting quarterback job, and it does seem likely it will be an open competition in camp. However, Cook had some success last season and is familiar with the offense, which gives him the upper hand over Garcia. As for Horn, learning from Cook and Garcia is not a bad thing for his development.