by Gary Pinkel
Going into our second season we had a huge decision to make. Kirk Farmer was back for his senior year. He stayed healthy as a junior and did some good things for us. Kirk was a great kid. I loved the guy. But any time you make personnel changes, you do what’s right for the team. You have to put the personal feelings aside. I told our staff the same. You can’t run a business that way, and we couldn’t run our team that way. I was conflicted. Do we go with the senior who had given Mizzou everything he had the last few years, or do we turn the offense over to the redshirt freshman, Brad Smith?
So I called Frank Lauterbur. The former Toledo coach always gave me great advice. I told him about our quarterback situation. The senior or the rookie? He said, “Gary, what’s your gut feeling?” There’s got to be a time when you rely on your gut. Don James used to say that all the time. Steve Jobs talked about that in his book. People in the business world have to make gut decisions. My gut told me to go with Brad Smith.
I’d probably get criticized for turning away from the senior, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t really get a good feel from the team one way or another. I think our players had a feeling Brad was a different kind of athlete. His abilities weren’t on full display in scrimmages. You tagged him and he was down. But those six-yard gains in a scrimmage might turn into 30-yard gains if you have to tackle the guy to the ground. Both kids were such good guys and they handled the decision as I expected.
We announced Brad as the starter a week before our first game. Here we go. We were set to open the season against Illinois in St. Louis. Illinois was coming off a Big Ten championship season and had just played in the Sugar Bowl.
I thought you’d see a pretty good athlete make a few plays for us. But Brad was a redshirt freshman. Of all the guys on our staff, our defensive coaches probably knew best what to expect. They’d spent the last year watching him run the scout team offense. They were the ones lobbying me to play him the year before. “This guy’s a freak!,” they’d tell me.
The night before the game we had a walk-through at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. From the dome, I rode to the team hotel with Chad Moller, our media relations director and my friend. It was a quiet drive. “I hope I made the right decision,” I said.
“Me, too, Coach,” Chad told me. “Me, too.”
I wasn’t concerned about Brad’s ability, but could he handle the big stage in a rivalry game like this?
The next day St. Louis threw a coming-out party. Illinois was stunned. Our fans were stunned. I was a little bit stunned. Brad ran for 138 yards and threw for another 152. And we took down the Big Ten champs 33–20. What I remember most about that night was sitting in the front seat of the bus as we’re pulling away from the Dome and thinking, Wow. We’ve got something special here.
My mind drifted back to the summer. I was playing golf with Coach James. He could tell I was frustrated. We were running the program, his program, but that first year was so difficult. We seemed so far away from our goals. He said, “Gary, you can think you’re doing everything right, but if you don’t evaluate your players and develop them, I don’t care how organized your program is, it’s not going to work. You need players. Get more guys drafted and you’ll start winning more games.” He was absolutely right. It would be years before we started shipping players to the NFL, but obviously we had a great young player in Brad Smith.
Our players were feeling really good about themselves. But I didn’t handle them very well. We were 2–0 after a lopsided win over Ball State and headed to Bowling Green for a rematch. Not only were we playing Urban Meyer’s team again—the team that beat us in my first Mizzou game—but we were going to their place, Doyt Perry Stadium, a place that seats about 30,000. And you can bet they wanted to see another upset of a Big 12 team, coached by the guy from Toledo, their archrival. Brad Smith was outstanding, but we couldn’t stop Urban’s offense. Bowling Green got us again 51–28.
As if things weren’t bad enough, our plane didn’t show up to take us home after the game. Like a sick joke, we were stuck in the Toledo airport. We waited for hours in the terminal, our entire team of coaches and players and staff. I was so mad about our performance. I wore the anguish on my face. And I wanted the players to notice. I wanted them to look like I was ready to beat someone up. I walked up and down the concourse. Down and back, down and back. I was just waiting for a player to joke around, to say something to set me off. I was in attack mode. I wanted them to see how upset this game made me. I wanted them to see how much I wanted to win. I should have done something different to have my team prepared for what was waiting for us in Bowling Green.
Two weeks later we hosted No. 3 Oklahoma. It was another breakout performance for Brad, who ran for more than 200 yards on Bob Stoops’ defense. Oklahoma went ahead late in the fourth quarter and won by a touchdown, but it was the best we’d played against a nationally strong team in my two years on the job.
But we still didn’t know how to beat good teams. We lost the next week at Nebraska and again the following week at Texas Tech.
I was so upset with how we played in Lubbock. I’m not sure I ever flipped out on my players more than I did that night after the game. I had already talked to the team, so everyone was at their lockers changing clothes. I was at my locker doing the same, except I was throwing stuff everywhere. I looked like I was going crazy. But I was under complete control. It was a calculated explosion. I had to make a statement. This was about what was acceptable and what wasn’t acceptable. It was one thing to lose to Oklahoma and Nebraska. But this was Texas Tech, and we should have been more competitive. If you can blow off this result, this effort, then you don’t get it.
We ended the losing streak with a home win over Kansas but lost three of our final four games. Overtime games became our specialty, which I suppose is appropriate considering I had coached the first Division I-A overtime game seven years earlier. We had at least one overtime game in each of our first five seasons at Mizzou, including the only back-to-back overtime games in team history in 2002, a home loss to Colorado followed by a road win at Texas A&M.
That victory in College Station felt like the start of something. That wasn’t an easy place to play, but we persevered and hung on 33–27. We were getting better, we were getting closer, but we still didn’t go to a bowl. So we were still frustrated. We weren’t handling success very well, because we weren’t used to winning. Our team still didn’t know how to prepare. We needed to beat No. 10 Kansas State in the final game of the regular season to secure bowl eligibility, but it wasn’t even close. They took us out 38–0. Our Missouri teams would get shut out only one other time in 15 years.
I knew if we struggled early our staff would face criticism—and we did after another losing season. I could avoid the outside noise because I always went back to the advice Coach James gave me the day I left Washington for Toledo: “Just focus on your job every day.” That talk was probably the best thing that ever happened to me professionally, especially in this volatile, public job where you get evaluated and criticized all the time. Now that I’m out of coaching I’ve realized there’s more criticism and scrutiny and analysis from the media and the fans than I ever imagined. Everyone has an opinion on everything coaches do. People who know nothing about football act like they do. But that’s okay. That’s one of the things that makes the sport so entertaining. Everyone has an opinion on everything. But I focused on my team, doing my job and sticking to the process of the program.
For our players, I had to keep reminding them that what we do works. We were training players, training leadership, and teaching players how to think the right way, how to act the right way. Those lessons started to take root.
• • •
We started the 2003 season 4–0, Missouri’s best start to the season since 1981. In our fourth game we needed overtime to hold off Middle Tennessee State 41–40. Our tight end, J.D. McCoy, made a diving, juggling catch along the sideline
to convert a fourth down on a late possession, the kind of play that saves seasons and saves jobs. He’s now a fireman in Oklahoma saving real lives. On that day, he might have rescued our season from something we couldn’t escape. We came into that game 3–0 and ranked No. 23, the first time we had been nationally ranked since I came to Columbia. I guess I assumed we had everything covered. Sometimes you have to go through games like that to remind yourself how vulnerable your team can be any week against any opponent.
The good times didn’t last; we lost at Kansas by three touchdowns the next week. We had a bye the following week, and I remember staying at home the next Monday morning, just wanting to stay in bed. I was just wiped out emotionally. We didn’t play well. We didn’t handle our success well. Now we faced a bye and had to get ready to play 10th-ranked Nebraska. That was one of those weeks where I thought about the advice my dad would sometimes give me. “Get up and do something about your problems. You’re a leader. You’re not allowed to have bad days.” Most of all, “Go fix it!”
Once the staff returned from recruiting trips during the bye, we took the approach with our players that we were going to be positive. Just like Coach Fortner back at Kenmore High the week of the city championship. That game wasn’t about Garfield. And this game wasn’t about Nebraska. It wasn’t about our past failures. It was about our chance to pull off the upset by playing our best. That Saturday we returned for the start of Nebraska Week practices, and the staff was shocked. What had gotten into our players? We were 4–1 and coming off a bad loss, but the players were focused on the next challenge. There was a collective feeling that we were still a good team. We just couldn’t let something like that happen again. And for the first time since those players had arrived on campus, they had a feeling we could be a pretty good team, even after that loss to Kansas.
We needed a signature win for our program. We needed something to validate our strong start. We were better than the team that lost 35–14 at Kansas. Mizzou hadn’t beaten Nebraska since 1978 and hadn’t won in Columbia since 1973. This was our opportunity.
With an extra week to prepare, we finally earned that first signature win 41–24 over the Cornhuskers. We captured all the momentum late and outscored Nebraska 27–0 in the fourth quarter. The go-ahead touchdown was a fake field goal, a toss from backup quarterback Sonny Riccio to tight end Victor Sesay. That’s a bold call, but we had to coach to win the game. We went into every game with a planned fake. But this was a game that we had to give our kids a chance to win. I told the team the same thing. “We’re going for this win. We’re not going to sit back and hope things work out for the best. We’ve got to create some plays.” Those kinds of plays are emotional back-breakers to your opponents.
The fans stormed the field after the win and took down the goalposts. It was a historical win for the University of Missouri. We looked like we belonged on the field, and for me, that was important. The Mizzou crowd was crazy that night. We needed to start creating an environment at home games if we wanted to win more games like that.
With that win, the confidence level for our players started to change. We were slowly moving away from the losing culture. But I wasn’t naïve enough to think a couple wins would have us turned around. When you have two winning seasons in 19 years, it doesn’t happen that quickly. You might be able to flip things quicker at a program like Texas but not at Missouri. There’s no way we’d sit back and announce that we’d arrived just because we beat Nebraska—especially with our schedule. Our reward for finally beating the Huskers? A trip to No. 1 Oklahoma. That was our dose of reality. They were a better team and won by three touchdowns.
For us to build a winning program, we had to start winning home games. Eventually, established programs win games at any location, but you’ve got to start with success at home. We started to create some traditions to build our home environment. I talked to Mike Alden about putting more emphasis on a consistent and unique logo. We were sending a mixed message with our brand by using the traditional block M logo in addition to our Tiger image. The Tiger head became our identity. We started the Tiger Walk. Fans greeted the team a couple hours before each home game as we walked from the team facility, across the Providence Road bridge, and down into the bowels of the stadium. We gave the stadium a nickname: the Zou. We had to give the place some character to turn it into a place opponents didn’t want to visit. We had to draw a line in the sand and say, “This is the Zou. The past doesn’t matter.” We’re all part of the past to some degree, we told players, but it’s about everything that happens from this point on. “The past is not your burden,” I told the team. “It’s not my burden.” The kids bought into it for all the right reasons.
Texas Tech came to town after the Oklahoma loss, and a victory would make us eligible for a bowl. To secure a spot in the bowl selection process in your eighth scheduled game is unique, but I was still concerned with the letdown factor. There was no letdown that day. Brad nearly ran for 300 yards in a 62–31 win. We clinched a bowl spot but the season wasn’t over. We split our final four games to finish the regular season 8–4. We still weren’t a consistent team, but we happily accepted our first bowl invitation, a date with Arkansas in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, a place we’d visit frequently for bowl season. The Razorbacks controlled the game and won 27–14. Our kids just didn’t play well. We hadn’t learned how to flip that mental switch from enjoying our time at a bowl to playing the actual game. Over time, we’d learn how to handle those situations.
In the coming years, when I spoke publicly about my first few years at Missouri, I made a habit of talking about the situation we inherited. Our roster wasn’t good enough to compete in the Big 12, and that losing culture had infected the program. In 2007, I made that same comment during a public speaking engagement. Afterward, a former player from those earlier teams came up to me. “Coach, I was really disappointed when you said we had personnel problems.” I told him I was just being honest. “But you know,” he said, “there were a bunch of us back then who really bought into you and your program.” He was right. We might not have been loaded with great talent, but those guys were invested and made a difference in the future of Mizzou football.
Looking back, I’m so thankful for those guys who stuck around and battled for us. They started building the foundation. We needed kids like that. I appreciate those guys so much, because without them, more would have quit. Most kids like structure. They learn the discipline and apply it to the rest of their life. They feel more responsible and accountable, and that boosts your self-esteem. When it came to the weight room, it wasn’t about just lifting weights all day long. It was about setting personal records. Under the watch of Pat Ivey, our strength and conditioning coach and one of the indispensable members of our staff, we saw guys change in the offseason because their bench press went from 310 to 365 and their 40-yard dash went from 4.9 to 4.7. They were like light bulbs walking around. You raise your self-worth through the structure and through the discipline. That process helped build our program. Our players got bigger and faster and stronger, but they also developed their psyches. Their confidence soared. This was the beginning of Mizzou Made.
We made it to a bowl game in 2003 on the backs of players we inherited, and they proved Missouri could win again.
The 2004 recruiting class was loaded with in-state prospects. It was a crucial recruiting time for us. We had to capitalize on all these local players. The stories we told three years earlier to recruits and coaches and parents were starting to produce results. The trust factor was paying off. For years people said you couldn’t win at Missouri, but we had started to prove them wrong. People were noticing. Good things were happening. We signed all of the state’s best players that year, including some who became crucial additions, such as Tony Temple from Kansas City, Will Franklin from St. Louis, William Moore from Hayti, and others.
When the 2004 season arrived, we faced something new— outside expectat
ions. We were ranked No. 18 in the preseason poll. With Brad Smith back plus some proven playmakers around him, we expected our offense to be explosive. We wanted Brad to become a more polished passer. He didn’t attend the summer passing camps or work with a personal quarterback trainer like you see with so many players today. We hoped to have more balance in the offense, and we expected he’d improve as a passer.
There was no way to sense we were heading into a setback season. Never did we announce the year before that our program had arrived, but we had clearly made progress. In 2004, things unraveled quickly. We opened with a 32-point win over Arkansas State then faced a Thursday night game at Troy. We weren’t ready for what hit us that night, a 10-point loss in Troy, Alabama, on national TV. That was devastating. We weren’t mature enough to go into a game like that and play anything less than our best game. I should have done more. I don’t know what, but I should have done more.
But we recovered and won our next three games. We were 4–1 and 2–0 against Big 12 teams before heading to No. 9 Texas. We did some good things against a team that finished with 11 wins, but we came up short 28–20. It was the start of a five-game losing streak. Our defense was one of our best statistically, but we couldn’t do enough offensively.
We had some internal problems on that team. After a home loss to Oklahoma State, we had to suspend Damien Nash, our running back from St. Louis, after he questioned our play-calling in an interview with a columnist, and because of other issues. We had to find ways to win and resolve the problems we had internally. With Damien’s situation, you don’t want to hurt the team by holding a talented player out of games, but you also have to fulfill your team standards and do the right thing—or down the road it’s going to hurt you. We had other problems, not just Damien. When you lose close games, guys bunker up and they’re not in it for the team. Some players just don’t understand or believe that when things get tough you’re supposed to work together. You can’t hide in the corner.