Why the intricacies of QB footwork could help Mizzou's Brady Cook if he plays Saturday

COLUMBIA, Mo. — You are a right-handed quarterback, dropping back to pass.

You call out the cadence and catch the shotgun snap — the start of most plays in Missouri’s offense. You lift your right foot and pivot 90 degrees clockwise, your hips opening as you begin to bounce subtly backward.

Your left foot moves next, almost crossing your body as you take a controlled hop away from the line of scrimmage, a kind of taut shuffling move.

Then comes the weight transfer, the explosion, the part of the throwing motion that will likely determine whether Mizzou quarterback Brady Cook is able to play — or able to play like himself — in Saturday’s game against Alabama after the high right ankle sprain he suffered last weekend.

This is a three-step drop, a quick one. Your right foot was step one, your left foot step two. Step three is your right again, with the momentum from your left foot’s almost-cross step shuttling you back to your final destination.

Your back leg — your right leg — catches your momentum, halting your brief backward movement. It flexes momentarily and tenses, your muscles prepared to fire forward as you throw the ball. Pause. This is the critical moment in your dropback, from a form and footwork standpoint. What your legs do next will determine whether your pass has any power.

Enter at this juncture Matt Biermann, a private quarterbacks coach in Chesterfield. He trained former MU quarterback and first-round draft pick Blaine Gabbert and has been Cook’s personal coach since the current Tigers QB’s youth football days.

“People will think you’re pushing off the back foot, and it’s really not the case,” Biermann said of this freeze-frame in a dropback. “It’s more of a gathering and sending the energy into the ground and then repurposing it and sending it up to your front foot.”

If you do it right, your weight goes from teetering backward to tipping forward, your left leg — your front leg — being the fulcrum for this football-throwing lever. As you snap your arm through the throwing motion, this leg stays engaged, giving you the torque behind your pass.

This mechanical gives Biermann optimism regarding Cook’s ability to play and effectively throw the ball this week. It’s unlikely Missouri or Cook will know for certain whether his ankle will be in playable shape until shortly before Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. kickoff, but this could be the eventual reason why it's possible for him to play.

And there’s little doubt that Cook will be trying to get out there. “Knowing him, he’s gonna do everything he can to get on the field and do it again,” Biermann said. The quarterback texted his private coach this week saying as much.

If Cook does play, it’s that moment in his dropback and the fact that it’s his right ankle that could make all the difference.

“On the end of a drop, if you think about that, the right foot gathers all of the energy into the ground, and then it anchors while he’s moving his left foot into position,” Biermann said. “The good thing is, from a mechanical standpoint, if he’s able to get some energy gathered into that right foot, the left foot is actually the more important foot in the equation because that’s the foot that posts in the ground and drives the energy up through the body — as long as he’s able to get enough, slow himself down enough … when he goes to throw, that left leg will then take over.”

Of course, it would be better if Cook had two healthy ankles, but the dichotomy of what each ankle has to do during the throwing motion makes the sprain on his right joint something of a silver lining.

“The left side’s so integral to the force production that I would prefer it to be the right ankle (hurt), if it’s me, just because of what I’ve seen over the years with our quarterbacks,” Biermann said. “It could become really problematic if they can’t extend their front leg when they’re throwing.”

On Saturday, Cook will likely be testing several aspects of his ankle’s mobility and ability to handle weight. Ideally for Mizzou, Cook can run, too, which strains ankles differently from the throwing potion. Pain tolerance could also be a factor, though it would seem the threshold for discomfort that would keep the fifth-year quarterback out of the game is quite high.

Cook was listed as doubtful on the first two injury reports of the week, an indication of the uphill battle he faces to play. He suffered the sprain on the first drive of MU’s game against Auburn, a play that took Cook out of the game and actually sent him to the hospital for an MRI. Through the power of will and an undisclosed treatment inside the team facility, he returned to lead Missouri’s comeback.

Along with preparing for the No. 15 Crimson Tide, one of Cook’s challenges this week has been recovery for his ankle.

“My suspicion is with him, just knowing who he is and how he’s made, he will work equally as hard at game planning as getting himself prepared this week,” Biermann said. “That’s what you get with Brady Cook, right?”

In the wake of Cook’s injury news, Biermann has been thinking about an old video he sent to the quarterback before the season started. It was filmed sometime when Cook was in elementary school, when he attended Mizzou games as a kid in the stands, not a starter.

In the video, Cook runs out onto the field in pads with a chunky cast on his left wrist — some sort of injury he was playing through, even at that age.

“If he was willing to do that for the O’Fallon Junior Renegades,” Biermann said, “then I think he’s willing to do it for the Missouri Tigers.”

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