SEC Media Days get underway in Dallas this week as the conference transitions to a 16-team league for the first time with Texas and Oklahoma joining.
With Quinn Ewers returning for his third year at quarterback, Texas is one of the betting favorites to win not only the SEC but the College Football Playoff National Championship.
Oklahoma, meanwhile, is transitioning to a new era led by former five-star quarterback Jackson Arnold.
The Red River arch-rivals join a conference that includes powerhouse programs and traditional blue bloods such as Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and LSU.
However, it's their former Big 12 brethren, Missouri, that could prove to be the surprise of the league. The Tigers offer a ton of value entering 2024, and I have two futures — a conference championship pick and Heisman bet — for Mizzou.
Missouri Tigers
To Win SEC (+1800)
When Missouri joined the SEC in 2012, it made quite the splash by going 12-2 in its second season in the league, winning the SEC East and earning a berth in the conference championship game. It followed that up with an 11-3 season and another East Division title.
However, the Tigers lost to Auburn and Alabama in those title games and have not returned to the SEC Championship since.
Missouri hadn't even won nine games since 2014 before last season. That shows how slow of a build it has been for head coach Eli Drinkwitz, who has gone 5-5, 6-7, 6-7 and 11-2 in his first four seasons.
Last year's team was balanced on both sides of the ball, ranking 13th in offense, 14th in defense and 10th in overall SP+ rankings.
Offensively, unheralded transfer running back Cody Schrader ran for over 1,600 yards and 13 touchdowns in his final season. On the other side of the ball, Missouri ranked 25th in scoring defense.
Five defensive players were selected in the first five rounds of April's NFL Draft, led by first-round defensive lineman Darius Robinson. Schrader, Robinson and defensive coordinator Blake Baker are among the departures from last year's team.
However, Missouri will return enough to be a factor in the SEC once again.
The Tigers should have one of the nation's best passing attacks with quarterback Brady Cook back at the helm. The redshirt senior completed 66% of his passes for 3,317 yards, 21 touchdowns and six interceptions last season. He also added another 319 yards and eight scores on the ground.
He'll have one of the nation's top receiving corps at his disposal with Luther Burden III, Theo Wease Jr. and Mookie Cooper all returning.
Burden is the standout of the group after recording 86 receptions for 1,212 yards and nine touchdowns in 2023. He will contend for All-American honors again this season.
Sophomore Marquis Johnson (29 yards per catch) and true freshman Courtney Crutchfield (top-50 recruit) may force themselves into the rotation as well.
To replace Schrader, Drinkwitz dipped into the transfer portal for running backs Marcus Carroll (Georgia State) and Nate Noel (Appalachian State). Carroll and Noel ran for over 5,000 yards combined in the Sun Belt and should find room behind a Missouri offensive line that finished 2023 as a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award.
With transfers in Oklahoma's Cayden Green and SMU's Marcus Bryant and returners in center Connor Tollison, guard Cam'Ron Johnson and tackle Armand Membou, the Tigers will have plenty of experience in the trenches.
Yet, it's the other side of the ball where Missouri is known for producing impact linemen.
When the Arizona Cardinals selected Robinson with the 27th overall pick, he became the 16th Missouri defensive lineman to be selected in the NFL Draft since 2001 and the seventh to go in the first round.
Edge Johnny Walker Jr. will look to lead this year's group after recording five sacks last season. However, the program's next future first-rounder may be true freshman Williams Nwaneri, who enters the program as the No. 6 overall player in the 2024 recruiting class.
The Tigers will also add Michigan State end Zion Young and Florida tackle Chris McClellan from the portal.
In the secondary, cornerback Toriano Pride Jr. returns to his home state after spending his first two seasons at Clemson. He'll join a unit that includes safety Joseph Charleston and the versatile Daylan Carnell.
While I'm very high on this Missouri roster, it's also hard to ignore the relatively fortunate schedule it will have this season.
Missouri dodges Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss and LSU — four of the five favorites to win the conference this season. It will have to play at Alabama and Texas A&M, but both programs are in a transition season with first-year head coaches.
The Tigers will also host Auburn and Oklahoma in addition to Murray State, Buffalo, Boston College and UMass in nonconference play. If Missouri can at least split the Alabama and Texas A&M games, it will have a great opportunity to go 11-1 and 7-1 in the conference.
Considering the other carnage I'm expecting in the SEC this season, that may be enough to slip into the SEC Championship.
Elsewhere in the SEC, Georgia plays at Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss while hosting Tennessee with a neutral-site rivalry game against Florida in Jacksonville.
In addition to Georgia, Texas will also host Florida, play at Texas A&M and play Oklahoma in Dallas. Considering that Georgia and Texas play each other, one of those two will have to suffer a conference loss. If either of them drops another game, that will give Missouri a chance to claim the other spot if it handles its own business.
Barring injuries, Missouri will likely be an underdog against Texas or Georgia, but we'd have plenty of hedging opportunities for a ticket nearing 20-1. Plus, it's worth noting that Alabama has upset Georgia in the conference championship game in two of the last three years and Missouri gave Georgia a test in Athens last season.
Mizzou's win total sits at 9.5 with the over at plus-money (+135) at DraftKings. If Missouri wins 10 games this season, it will most likely make the CFP because the committee won't leave out a 10-win SEC team. "That gives value to Missouri to Make the CFP" +175 at DraftKings.
For what it's worth, the Tigers would've been in the field as the No. 9 seed if the 12-team field was implemented last season.
QB Brady Cook
To Win Heisman (+3500)
If Missouri wins the SEC, that would mean it likely won 10 games and Brady Cook likely had a spectacular senior season. If that comes to fruition, Cook will likely find himself in New York as a Heisman finalist.
Throwing passes to Burden is one reason why Cook is in for a big season. Burden's odds range between +6500 and +10000 to win the Heisman himself, but he doesn't have as realistic of a chance to win the award as his quarterback.
If you asked me who the best player in college football was last season, I would've said Ohio State wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., who was also the first non-quarterback selected in the NFL Draft.
While Harrison did end up as a Heisman finalist, he didn't win the award because — surprise, surprise — another quarterback won it in LSU's Jayden Daniels.
Entering this season, the 23 players with the shortest odds to win the award are all quarterbacks. They include a true freshman in Ohio State's Julian Sayin and a likely backup in USC's Jayden Maiava.
So, if Missouri has a solid season, Cook will get more credit than Burden as the distributor and likely emerge as the school's Heisman representative.
Quarterback wins are certainly an unofficial factor in the Heisman race these days. Since 2000, 20 of the last 23 Heisman winners have been quarterbacks, and 17 of those quarterbacks were on teams that won 10 games in the regular season.
The other three — Robert Griffin III, Lamar Jackson and Daniels — all won nine games while averaging 5,000 total yards and 49 touchdowns.
Cook will need quite the leap to match those three, but racking up 4,000 total yards and 40 touchdowns will give him a shot. The Tigers' signal-caller offers some dual-threat capabilities, as he has run for 904 yards and 14 touchdowns over the last two years.
Last season, he increased his passing yardage by nearly 600 yards on 14 fewer attempts, jumping from 7.2 yards per attempt to nine.
That came with Missouri throwing the ball on just 43% of snaps. With the weapons Cook has at his disposal, he'll have a chance to throw for 4,000 yards in 13 games before the Heisman ceremony if that percentage jumps closer to 50% of the time — as was the case in Drinkwitz's first two seasons in Columbia.
Lastly, many would expect Georgia or Texas to play in the SEC Championship this season, but it doesn't really matter who the opponent is as long as the Tigers make it. Any opponent in the conference title game would likely be ranked in the top 10.
That'll give Cook a chance to make a final closing statement just before the finalists are announced.
