The 100-Yard Journey

by Gary Pinkel

  Initially, the medical examiner said Aaron died from lymphocytic meningitis. Aaron’s family later filed a wrongful death suit and identified the sickle cell trait as the cause for the vascular crisis that led to his death. Four years later the university reached a settlement with Aaron’s family. Mizzou also used $250,000 to establish an annual endowed scholarship in Aaron’s name.

  On our practice plans that coaches carried around during practice, we always listed names of players who had asthma. If those guys had breathing troubles during the workout, our coaches knew to back off. You always push your kids, but you had to know better if their names were on that list. After Aaron died we began listing the names of players who carried the sickle cell trait. Our training staff also began mandatory sickle cell testing for all athletes, a year before the NCAA required the testing.

  I never faulted Aaron’s family for how they felt and the legal action they took against the university. I could only imagine if that was my son who died the way Aaron left us. Aaron’s father is an incredible person, and it was no surprise Aaron was such an impressive young man.

  • • •

  It had already been a difficult year for me. On January 30, my brother Greg died suddenly after suffering a heart attack. He would have turned 47 the next day. He had the same disease as my sister and in some ways didn’t handle the symptoms and struggles as well as she did. He was able to play wheelchair basketball, and I was so proud of him when I’d get to Akron to watch him play.

  His team was good enough they won a championship. I still have his trophy in my case at home in Columbia.

  • • •

  In July 2004, we secured a verbal commitment from a quarterback out of Southlake, Texas, who would go on to change our program forever. Chase Daniel ran a similar no-huddle shotgun offense at Carroll High School, one of the elite programs in Texas. As poorly as the 2004 season went, we knew we’d have Chase on campus for 2005, Brad Smith’s senior year. Did we adopt Chase’s offense knowing he’d be our next quarterback? No, not at all. But the two systems paralleled each other—and the timing worked out perfectly. If Chase hadn’t come to Missouri, we still would have switched to the no-huddle spread.

  Chase was incredibly talented. He was a two-time Texas state player of the year, passed and ran for nearly 12,000 yards his final two years, and guided Carroll to the 2004 state championship. He learned how to win at high school’s highest level of competition and was gifted in so many ways. He understood defenses.

  When I met quarterbacks we recruited, I had to have a good gut feeling about the guy if we were going to seriously pursue him. I can’t really define what I was looking for, but I had to sense…something. Some people call it the “it factor.” For the most part, my gut feeling was usually right with the quarterbacks we recruited. In some years you might need to sign a quarterback for depth, and you don’t have the strongest feeling about those intangible factors. But with Chase there were zero doubts. He impressed me in so many ways. His confidence, his character, his leadership. And, oh yeah, his right arm.

  In December, after that lousy 2004 season, we made a visit to Chase’s home in Texas. He had been committed to us for five months, but there are no guarantees in recruiting. In four years at Missouri we were 22–25 with one winning season. Chase had lost one game his last three years in high school. One loss. We lost five games in a row just a few months earlier. Was he still on board? How could we possibly keep this guy?

  We walked in the Daniels’ home and I acknowledged to Chase and his parents the struggles we had faced. We had some problems, and I didn’t hide behind them. We had to own our problems. I told Chase and his mom and dad, “I’m confident we’re going to win at Missouri. Our program has worked everywhere else. We inherited a tough situation, but we’re right on the edge of doing some great things.”

  I’ll never forget, Chase’s mom, Vickie, let out a big sigh. “Okay, Coach,” she said. “I’m glad you brought that up and talked to us about it.” They were on board. We had our quarterback.

  Shortly before national signing day in February, the University of Texas lost a committed quarterback, Ryan Perrilloux, to LSU. Texas had been Chase’s dream school. His high school coach, Todd Dodge, played quarterback for the Longhorns in the 1980s. As we feared, Texas coach Mack Brown made an 11th-hour pitch to our future quarterback. Uh-oh.

  I had to call Chase.

  “Chase, is everything okay?”

  “Coach, everything’s fine,” he assured me. “You want me more than they do. You were the first school to offer me a scholarship. I’m coming to Missouri.”

  That was obviously a great phone call for Missouri football, but it also made a statement about Chase. He didn’t get caught up in the sudden interest and all the hype. He could have easily said, “Coach, Texas has always been my dream school. They finally came to their senses. I’m going to be a Longhorn.” But he didn’t, thankfully.

  Chase’s time would come, but in 2005 it was still Brad Smith’s team.

  • • •

  The new offense changed our team, but we still struggled in some ways. We debuted the offense against Arkansas State at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Brad Smith threw for 300 yards and four touchdowns and nearly ran for 100 yards in a big win. The offense was explosive again the next week against New Mexico, but our defense couldn’t get off the field. It turned into a 45–35 loss, another difficult defeat that proved our team still had a long way to go. Texas went on to win the national championship that year and we were one of the teams in their way. After losing to the Longhorns, we bounced back with a win at Oklahoma State, then came home to host Iowa State for homecoming.

  We took a quick 14–0 lead with two defensive touchdowns, but Iowa State scored the next 24 points and had the lead late into the fourth quarter. Midway through the fourth quarter Brad had to come out of the game after taking a shot to his head. It was time to find out what Chase Daniel was all about. He led us on two long scoring drives in the final five minutes and tied the game with a touchdown pass with 20 seconds left. In overtime, we kicked a field goal to win 27–24.

  The medical staff cleared Brad to come back into the game, but the coaches and I discussed it on the headsets and kept Chase on the field. We had all the momentum with him in the game.

  After the game, a pivotal win for our program, I learned a lot about Chase Daniel. That was the most extensive playing time he’d gotten since high school, and it was easy to see we had a special player on our hands. There was nothing normal about the way he played as a true freshman. He won the game for us and might have saved our season. He might have saved our jobs, too.

  After the game, I found him in the locker room. I had to warn him what was coming next. “The media’s going to come after you now. Are you ready for that?” He knew exactly what I was talking about. I didn’t have to explain what I meant.

  “Yeah, Coach, I’ll take care of that,” he said. “We all know who the starter is.”

  He went out in front of the reporters and, of course, he was asked if he thought he should start the next game. Chase never blinked. “I’m the backup,” he said. “Brad Smith is the starting quarterback.” You can’t have a kid handle that situation any better than he did. He wanted to make it clear he had no expectation to be the starter. It was the ultimate sign of respect for Brad, our senior leader.

  Chase said the same thing Monday at our weekly press conference.

  “Brad’s the leader of this team and has been for four years,” he told the reporters. “Nothing will change at all, and I don’t want it to.”

  In Chase, we knew we had a guy who was at a different level in the way he thought about the game, the way he prepared for the game, the way he competed, the way he believed in himself. I thought he had those qualities, but you never know until you see the player on the field when the score counts. It took me back to 2002, when Brad was a freshman. We k
new we had a guy in line who could play at a high level at the most important position on the field.

  There was never any lingering controversy, mostly because of the way Chase handled those questions after the game. Brad went back into the starting lineup the next week and led us to another win—and not just any win. We beat Nebraska 41–24, oddly enough the same score of our milestone win over the Huskers in 2003. Brad was at his very best, with 234 passing yards, 246 rushing yards, and four touchdowns. We were 5–2, one win away from bowl eligibility. And we had our quarterback of the future on deck.

  After the Nebraska win, our players were feeling pretty good. They probably enjoyed walking around campus and hearing the praise. But then we went on the road and lost to Kansas 13–3. It was only the second time we failed to score a touchdown with Brad at the controls of the offense. Kansas’ defense had good game plans for us during Brad’s four years. One loss turned into two when we lost the next week at Colorado. As a program, we still hadn’t learned how to handle success.

  We came home to play Baylor in Brad’s last home game.

  With six minutes in the game, we faced a crucial fourth-and-1. We were winning, but Baylor had trimmed our lead from 24 to eight and held all the momentum. At the time you never think this way, but looking back, our whole football program was on the line. If we don’t convert this fourth down, Baylor would get the ball around midfield and, the way things were going, probably rally to win the game, or at least take us to overtime. The next week we had the season finale at Kansas State, where Missouri hadn’t won since 1989. If we don’t beat Baylor, we’re longshots at Kansas State. Lose both and no bowl game—and maybe my job is in jeopardy.

  In other words, we had to make this first down. We called a quarterback sneak into the A-gap. Brad picked up the yard, bounced it outside, and kept running…and running…and running. All I wanted was a yard and he gave us 56—and a touchdown. We won 31–16, and we were bowl eligible.

  I just remember going home after the game and walking into my house where my family was euphoric, clapping, hugging, crying. We get so emotionally wrapped up in these games because they mean so much for our players and, ultimately, our careers. But they mean so much to our families, too. We lose that game and maybe we never get to see the Big 12 North championship seasons in the coming years.

  But first, a bowl game. We finished the regular season 6–5 after another loss at Kansas State. Our reward is another trip to Shreveport for the Independence Bowl against another SEC team, this time South Carolina, in its first year under Steve Spurrier. It was the first time we ever met, but shortly after that game, we bumped into each other at the national coaches convention and talked for more than an hour. We had plenty to discuss.

  Bowl games are tricky, especially for teams that weren’t used to playing in them. We were in the second quarter, down 21–0, and I was miserable, taking everything that went wrong personally. I screwed this whole thing up. I still hadn’t trained my team to have fun but be ready to play our best by game time. They still didn’t get it! Then Markus King, a senior cornerback, picked off a pass on the goal line and returned it 99 yards. We added another touchdown right before the half and our locker room was crazy. We were down 28–14, but it was like we were winning the national championship game. In the second half we outscored them 24–3—three Brad Smith touchdown runs and a field goal—and won the game by a touchdown. It was the biggest comeback win in Mizzou history. Brad was vintage Brad in the second half, racking up more than 400 yards of offense and accounting for all of our offensive touchdowns. He went out on a moment that he deserved.

  Chase played a series in the game, but even though Brad struggled in the first half, we stuck with our senior. A lot of friends asked me after the game why we didn’t bench Brad. (I suspect they were bold enough to ask only because we won the game.) I just went back to the factors I always used to measure a quarterback. Was he still poised? Was he focused? Brad was in charge. We just had to encourage him. But I also realized that we would not have been playing in this game if not for Brad Smith. I felt with all he had done for us, I should give him an opportunity in the second half.

  Brad finished his Mizzou career with a record of just 25–23. Nothing spectacular. If you were around Missouri prior to Brad’s arrival, you’d understand the extraordinary circumstances.

  It was a huge win for our program and a huge season. Mike Alden never said a word about my job security. At the time I never worried about job security. I never talked to my staff about it or my family. But looking back now, the 2005 season could have given us four losing records in five years. How do you convince your fans and your recruits that I’m a pretty good coach if we’re home for bowl season four out of five years? Thanks to Brad, we never had to worry about that.

  As our personnel was developing and maturing, Brad was still the catalyst. As much as anything he was just a remarkable young man. He was so special. He was a tremendous leader by the way he carried himself and treated others. He was a very strong Christian, but he never alienated anyone who wasn’t. His form of leadership was to put his life on display to see how he lived on and off the field. You hear coaches say all the time that a good player leads by example. Brad’s examples were simply the best. You can be the greatest coach in the world, but if you don’t have great players you don’t win games. Without Brad, without all the special things he did for our program, we might not have lasted long at Missouri.

  • • •

  When the clock hit zeroes at the Independence Bowl, some of our players celebrated at the 25-yard line. That was Aaron O’Neal’s number. Aaron was on our minds throughout that year and beyond. For years to come, we came up with ways to honor his memory. We kept his locker intact and turned it into a memorial. In 2008, which would have been Aaron’s senior year, a different senior wore his No. 25 for each game. From then on, a linebacker was assigned No. 25 and wore it for the length of his career. We had his picture up throughout the facility. We hung an “A.O.” sign in the locker room and made sure to touch it every time we walked in or out through the door. It was important to hit the sign and touch Aaron every day.

  When new players came into our program each year, we told them about Aaron and what he meant to our coaches and players. He was such a special kid. In a way we never could have envisioned, we had leaders in our program emerge from Aaron’s death and its aftermath, guys like Lorenzo Williams and Martin Rucker. Our players loved Aaron, and you could sense they became united in trying to honor him. It was important, too, that they trusted our staff. They were hurt and confused, but they didn’t come out and criticize our coaches for what happened on the field that day. Our coaches and players got closer in some ways because we all went through the grieving process together.

  I realized then, too, I had to open myself up more to my players. I needed to talk to them, to hug them, to tell them I loved them. That came more naturally after we lost Aaron.

  • • •

  The 2006 season felt like the start of a new era. Chase Daniel was our quarterback. It was our second year in the new offense. We were starting to recruit and develop other playmakers to surround the quarterback. We started the season 6–0, the program’s best start in 33 years. That made us bowl eligible before Halloween. That didn’t happen very often at Missouri. We were learning how to win games but still didn’t always know how to handle success. I was still apprehensive because we didn’t quite know how good we were. But the players were starting to absorb the process of how to prepare and play well consistently.

  We didn’t lose to Texas A&M very often, but we lost down there when a fake field goal backfired. We cleared some hurdles that season, finally beating Kansas State. Missouri hadn’t beaten the Wildcats since 1992. But we did that season, by 20 points at home. That was significant, even though Bill Snyder had stepped away from coaching that year. He had the Kansas State program right up there with Oklahoma and Texas and Nebraska a
s the class of the Big 12. We’d get more chances against Bill down the road.

  We came home and lost a competitive game to Oklahoma—a game some might remember for Chase Coffman dropping a wide-open pass along the sideline. He never dropped a ball in his life, and by the time he left Mizzou a few years later he caught more passes than anyone in program history. But it’s funny how you sometimes remember the plays that didn’t go your way. He put on a show the next year at Colorado, one of the many great games he played for us.

  We went to Nebraska the next week. You could tell from the opening kickoff they wanted us bad. We had beaten them two of the last three years and before we knew it, we were down 27–3. They’d win by a couple touchdowns.

  After a bye week we headed to Iowa State. Shortly before the game, Mizzou announced my contract extension through the 2011 season. What followed was one of the craziest games of my career. We led at halftime but fell behind in the third quarter. We cut the lead to five early in the fourth quarter and began to march down the field. We got to the 2-yard line with 26 seconds left. On fourth down, Chase found a lane and plunged into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. What a comeback victory!

  But then came the flag—holding on Monte Wyrick, our right guard. Nobody calls holding down there on the goal line. It never happens. Never. I erupted.

  We had one more play, but Iowa State sacked Chase and won the game 21–16.

  I never, ever in all my years before or after that night complained about officiating after a game. But my players fought back after a bad start and put themselves in position to win the game. And the officials took it away from them. I was so proud of the way my team responded. We’d been in those situations before and came up short. I admitted to the media after the game that we didn’t play well, but good teams still find a way to win and that’s exactly what we did. It was devastating.