by Gary Pinkel
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In that offseason the Big Ten Conference announced it was going to explore expansion. I got worried as more and more talk surfaced about conference realignment. I didn’t know where Missouri would land in a game of musical chairs. There was a lot of conversation about some schools going to the Big Ten and some going to the Pac-10. If leagues started poaching the Big 12, where did that leave Missouri? I didn’t come here from a smaller conference to suddenly start coaching in another smaller conference. So personally, I had a lot of concerns.
I could sense the tension and the inequality starting to surface during our Big 12 meetings. Texas controlled the conference. People can deny it all they want, but that was the truth. For a guy like Tom Osborne, Nebraska’s athletic director and the school’s legendary football coach, to come out and say the league wasn’t acting in its best self interests, that was significant. And from there Nebraska left for the Big Ten. It was a bold move.
Could that have been Missouri’s spot? At the time I thought the Big Ten would have been a great place for Missouri. It was very competitive, very respected. At the time, I never once thought about the possibility of Missouri moving to the SEC. I knew the SEC was a great conference with great teams. But we fit the Big Ten. Geographically we touch states with teams from both leagues, but we’re a lot closer to more schools in the Big Ten. When all the talk started, I didn’t suspect the SEC would have interest in Missouri. We were still a long way from that scenario unfolding.
Mike Alden and I talked about the Big Ten. He always let me know everything that was happening. He had a meeting in North Carolina with folks from the Big Ten. The Big Ten would have been okay for Missouri, but I still would have been disappointed if things couldn’t work in the Big 12. The Big 12 was a great league. We had great rivals. We had great competition. It was just so disappointing how they let it fall apart, to the point that Colorado wanted out and joined the Pac-10 and Nebraska wanted out and joined the Big Ten. Then Texas A&M wanted out and joined the SEC.
Texas had launched the Longhorn Network instead of finding a way to create a Big 12 Network. The TV revenue had always been distributed unevenly in the Big 12, with a larger share going to the teams that were on TV more often. More than anything, I got a sense for how Texas felt about the rest of the conference when we sat down for Big 12 meetings. They operated on their own agenda. It doesn’t matter what kind of company you’re running—when you have that kind of inequality in terms of control, they’ll all implode eventually. I made some candid comments to the media about the league’s state of affairs that probably bothered some people, but I was just being honest about the revenue-sharing and decision-making that was affecting the league. People at other schools felt the same way; they just didn’t want to say it out loud. Mike Alden probably wished sometimes I had taken a more measured tone, but that’s just how I felt.
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When we faced challenging times in our program, I often heard the voice of my dad giving me the simple message whenever times got tough. “Fix it, Gary.” He was a master at fixing things himself—radios, computers, you name it.
I lost my dad on February 6, 2010. It seemed like he could survive anything. At 55 he underwent triple bypass surgery and later lived through an aneurism. When I was coaching at Toledo, he was diagnosed with cancer, which doctors traced back to radon exposure. I’d drive over to Akron for a day or two and take him to his cancer treatment. But he lived on until his health deteriorated beyond the point where doctors could fix him. He was 83 when he died.
• • •
By the time we opened preseason camp for 2010, the Big 12 was down to 10 schools. By August, we were focused on football. Unfortunately, adversity came before we broke camp. On the day of our final scrimmage of the preseason, we had to suspend Derrick Washington, our senior running back who had just been voted a team captain. Derrick was accused of sexually assaulting a female tutor, who then issued a restraining order against him. That led to a felony charge, a conviction, and a prison sentence. By then, he was long gone from the program.
This wasn’t the first incident for Derrick. Two years earlier he was questioned by police about a sexual assault accusation. When I learned of that, I went through our normal protocol. I alerted Mike Alden, who then told our chancellor and other school officials. Derrick was never arrested or charged with a crime for the 2008 incident, which came to light years later in an ESPN report about Title IX regulations.
Like always, with Derrick’s incidents, I just wanted information so I could pass it along through the proper channels. If it’s a case of he said–she said, I can’t do anything with that as a head coach. In those cases, I can’t make a ruling on accusations that don’t lead to charges—unless I know for certain that something wrong took place. We had another case years later with a star player where I learned more information about an incident from people I trusted.
In 2010, when we suspended Derrick, I told him, “This is really bad. Two years ago and now this? This is serious. The police are investigating. We’ve got problems here.” You don’t want to falsely accuse a player, but you have to be aggressive verbally because you want to know the truth and you want the player to understand how serious these accusations are.
We never would have allowed Derrick to be voted a captain if we thought the situation would have gone that direction. He went down to Dallas for the Big 12 media days shortly before this unfolded, and obviously we wouldn’t have taken him on the trip if we expected the restraining order. Parents give me their sons and expect me to treat them with fairness and handle situations the right way. We had structures set in place should a player be arrested for a felony and then charged. You want to do what’s right and deal in honesty.
When it came to discipline issues, the voice of public opinion was never my guiding light. I never made decisions based on how the media or the public would perceive the situation. You have to plan how you’ll deal with the questions and the scrutiny, but you still have to do the right thing. Sometimes the right thing is protecting your player. Sometimes you have to suspend him or remove him from the team.
By 2014, Mizzou had made major policy changes to clarify how employees report sexual assaults. The university also hired a new full-time Title IX coordinator to handle those allegations. I welcomed the changes because now a structured system would be in place that took the coaches and the athletic department out of the decision-making process. We were criticized in how that situation unfolded, but long-term, I was glad we were able to bring some awareness to the importance of the Title IX regulations. In 2017, the Association of American Universities recognized Mizzou for its efforts to combat sexual misconduct and commended the school’s Office for Civil Rights & Title IX.
As for our team, our players weren’t naïve when it came to Derrick’s situation. But the fewer problems you have off the field, the better team you’re going to have. All those distractions take their toll on the unity of a team. But you also have to recognize that we’re dealing with kids and kids make mistakes. I’d always tell people that if their son or daughter makes a mistake, you don’t automatically throw them out of your house. There’s a price to pay for mistakes, but then, hopefully, it’ll make you a better man. You learn and grow, hopefully. Whenever a player gets in trouble with the law, as a coach you are concerned about embarrassment that might be brought on the program. But I dealt with each situation head-on. A lot of coaches at other schools would overlook issues, but we never made decisions on discipline issues based on how it would impact wins and losses. We had to dismiss a handful of talented, valuable players over the years. Some people say you hurt the rest of the team when you suspend a player for a game. If it hurts the team that he’s not playing, then the bigger message is even clearer—don’t hurt the team. We were very consistent when it came to discipline. We also didn’t ignore problems. I told our coaches all the time, “I want to know what’s going o
n.” A lot of coaches delegated the discipline to the assistant coaches, but that wasn’t my style. I handled discipline issues so that we kept things consistent. It’s better for team morale that way. It didn’t matter if you were at the top of the depth chart or a walk-on.
On the same day we suspended Derrick, our scrimmage ended with a major injury. Munir Prince, a defensive back who transferred to us from Notre Dame, was knocked out during a punt return and experienced temporary loss of feeling in his upper and lower extremities. I quickly made it over to the hospital. I didn’t know if he was going to make it. Was he going to be paralyzed? It was horrific, just frightening. It’s not your son, but it is your son. That’s your role as a coach, like it or not. When you recruit these players, you look their parents in the eye and make that promise: “I’ll treat your son like I would my own.” Thank God the doctors eventually came out and said he was going to be okay. Munir decided to end his playing career, but he earned his degree and is now a college coach. What a day that was.
Once the season began, we had to replace our 1,000-yard rusher, but we had Blaine Gabbert back at quarterback and a committee of running backs. After we opened with another win over Illinois in St. Louis, we hosted a talented San Diego State team and fell behind early in the fourth quarter. The lesson that night was simple—never give up. With a minute left, we trailed by four and T.J. Moe caught a short pass in the flat, found an alley down the sideline, and went for 68 yards and scored the game-winning touchdown.
I’ve had some good fourth-quarter teams, and the key to winning games like that wasn’t just believing in yourself. It’s not about the rah-rah-rah. It’s about playmakers. Somebody has to make a play. Once we got into the SEC, we played so well in the fourth quarter in 2013 and 2014. I told those teams all the time, “We’re mentally tough. We’re at our highest level of focus in the toughest parts of the game in the fourth quarter. But you still have to make plays.” In the San Diego State game it was T.J. The agony of defeat quickly became the thrill of victory. We did not play our best game, so you have to remind your players in the wake of the celebration. But it’s so much more fun fixing those problems after you win a game, especially a game like that.
We started to get on a roll. We shut out Colorado. We won big at Texas A&M. Our reward was a huge home game against Oklahoma. They were ranked No. 1 in the BCS standings. For the first time ever, ESPN’s College GameDay came to our campus and set a record for the biggest crowd at the on-site studio on Francis Quadrangle. That was a big deal for our program and our university.
We had never beaten Oklahoma. We had played well against the Sooners in some regular-season games, but they also got us twice for the Big 12 championship. In my Thursday speech that week I talked to our players about respect. In the Big 12, you earned respect by beating the great teams.
The atmosphere was electric that night and it only got better when Gahn McGaffie returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. Blaine was outstanding. We took the lead in the fourth quarter and our defense made enough stops down the stretch in a 36–27 win.
I was very fortunate to have a lot of big wins in the Zou. This was the first time we had ever beaten a No. 1–ranked team. I was so proud of our team. It was as big of an environment as you can get in a regular-season game. I remember coming out of the locker room and Blaine was sitting there on ESPN’s set on the field. You want your program to experience days like that. You’ve got to have big wins if you want to elevate your program.
That night, I was just thrilled on the drive home. It was about 11:00 pm. I decided to call Coach James. I never called him after any other game that I coached. It was 9:00 pm on the West Coast and he’d still be up watching a game. All I wanted to do was thank him. We had a lot of tough wins at Mizzou and those huge wins were so rewarding. We talked for a few minutes, but then he ended our call with this: “Now you know what your toughest problem is going to be?”
“What’s that, Coach?”
“Next week,” he said.
Are you kidding me? That’s it? I get one of the biggest wins of my career and he wants to warn me about next week?
Well, he knew what he was talking about.
We played at Nebraska the following week. We won our last game there in 2008 by five touchdowns. Needless to say, we had their attention. We didn’t play our best and they played really well. It was a brutal back-to-back schedule for us. At one point during our time in the Big 12 I called the league office to ask about our schedule. Every year that we played Oklahoma we played Nebraska the week before or the week after: 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2010. Why was that? Oklahoma was always our toughest cross-division opponent and Nebraska was our toughest division opponent. Back-to-back, every time. Whining aside, we still had to come to those games with our highest level of play. We didn’t at Nebraska in 2010 and they beat us by two touchdowns.
The next week we went to Texas Tech. We had beaten them three times in a row. We scored on the first possession and then our offense went into hiding for the rest of the game. It was a lot like the Texas Bowl against Navy the year before. I could feel it on the sideline. Our guys thought we were on cruise control. From that point on, we played poorly on offense. Sometimes scoring so fast becomes your own worst enemy.
We had gone from this epic win over Oklahoma, thinking we were about to have another 2007 season, and then it was whack, whack. We were 7–0…and then in an instant we were 7–2.
My senior players had a lot of meetings to attend in my program. Once the staff got through signing day, I met all the time with the current juniors who would be seniors in the fall. We’d have regular meetings February through April to discuss leadership and their roles in the summer and fall. Those guys were responsible for relaying our talks and our decisions down to the younger players in their position groups. Once we got into the season I met with the seniors every Monday. I valued their experience, their leadership, their voices, and their trust. They would have a record at the end of their Mizzou careers, and I reminded them of that all the time.
The Monday after the Texas Tech game, one of those senior leaders and team captain, Kevin Rutland, a cornerback from Texas, said he needed to talk to me. He came into my office, shut the door, and looked me dead in the eye. “Coach, this team is in a funk. It’s been that way since the Oklahoma game. We’ve got to do something to get out of this.”
So I listened. We freakin’ cranked up the intensity that week. We always practiced hard, but this was different. We had to get the funk out. It’s like when you take a nap in the afternoon. You wake up after an hour and you’re still groggy. Your head is swimming in gunk. That was our football team. They wished the season had ended after Oklahoma so they could go home and celebrate. Instead, we had to shake things up.
We played Kansas State the next week, a team that had just beaten Texas. But we finally played close to the level of the Oklahoma game. We beat Kansas State by 10, then won at Iowa State the next week 14–0. We played Kansas again at Arrowhead and dominated 35–7. Coach James was right. It was all about the next week. How would we respond? We responded, but it took us a few weeks to respond the right way.
At the end of the regular season, we tied with Nebraska for the division lead, but the Huskers went to the championship game because of the head-to-head tiebreaker. We still earned a great bowl matchup against Iowa in the Insight Bowl. Blaine had a career night until a late interception into coverage, his only mistake in the game. I told the team after the loss that the interception didn’t kill us. It was the return. We let the defensive back go 72 yards for a touchdown. It was a great learning experience for Blaine, but he was a wreck after that three-point loss. First thing I had to do at the postgame press conference was take the heat off Blaine. If we had made the tackle on that return, maybe we would have won that bowl. It turned out to be Blaine’s final college game. He left for the NFL draft, which didn’t surprise us at all. Same for Aldon Smith, our
defensive end. Again, no surprise. They both had NFL talent and received high draft projections. Both became first-round NFL draft picks. For the Tigers, we had just won 10 games but we had to reload quickly.
• • •
After the 2010 season, Michigan was making a head-coaching change. I didn’t necessarily want to move, but Michigan’s representative had reached out. They said to me several times, “Gary, you had this program at Kent State and then you saw it work at Washington. You took it to Toledo and it worked. Now you’re doing it at Missouri, a place where you’re not supposed to win like you’re winning. If you drop your program into Ann Arbor…” And then their representative paused and said, “You get to recruit any…player…you…want.” He paused between each word to add emphasis. That was the comment that grabbed my attention.
At the time, and this is still true, Michigan carried more of a national presence. It’s a place where you can consistently win at a national level. Not that we couldn’t at Missouri, but Michigan has a stronger brand and more resources. I felt the temptation. He told me to bring my agent down to a meeting at the national coaches convention in Dallas. At that point, the reality set in. This could get serious. Do I really want to make this move? I sat up in my hotel room all night until early in the morning. Then I called my agent. I told John, “I want to stay at Missouri.” We canceled the meeting.
Do I regret it? Do I regret never going to an established national program like Michigan and installing our program? I don’t know how to answer that.
Late in my time at Toledo, I had a player who was a transfer from Ohio State. He walked into my office and said, “Coach, I’m just telling you, if you ever take your program to Columbus, Ohio, you’ll win a bunch of national championships.” Wow. Was this kid serious?
I told him, “Listen, you’re a starter. You don’t need to say these things.” He wouldn’t let up.