by Gary Pinkel
I told our staff we had to remove him from the team. Some coaches resisted. They said we didn’t know if everything that allegedly happened really happened. But I knew. I trusted my information.
We had healthy discussions like that about a wide variety of topics. If it’s a two-point conversion, we need to talk about it and get our thoughts on the table. Don James and Bobby Bowden always talked about the importance of the staff meeting. Around that table, I wanted information. You talk things out. In this case, I could sense frustration from some of our assistants. I couldn’t change what I knew. Once we stepped out of the staff meeting, we were all on the same team. The discussion was over.
You always want to help kids. But I have to live with my decisions. I had no choice with Dorial.
I brought him into my office and shared the news with him. It was incredibly emotional. He was devastated. I thought he was a great kid. But I also thought he needed some help outside of football. I wish I had done more to help him earlier in his career if I had known more. Sometimes you make discipline decisions on a player based on precedents that you established years earlier with a different player. But in this case, I couldn’t justify keeping him on the team.
Dorial wanted to transfer somewhere so he could immediately play that season. Oklahoma called about him, and I told Bob Stoops he was a great kid who could use some counseling. I love Dorial. It was hard for me to take that action, but at the same time, it wasn’t a hard decision for our program. He crossed a line with his actions. I told Bob that anyone from his program could call me and I would be honest. The NCAA turned down Dorial’s request to play immediately that fall. He never played another college game, and he entered the 2015 NFL draft and became a second-round draft pick.
We would experience a similar situation with another prominent player in 2015.
• • •
We felt really good about Maty Mauk taking over at quarterback after the glimpses we saw in 2013. He was talented. He played a big role in our 12-win season. He was an electrifying playmaker. We figured we’d have another three great seasons with him running the offense. He was next in line. Brad, Chase, Blaine, James, and now Maty.
Some of the national media and folks who had covered the SEC for a long time figured 2013 was a fluke. They must have thought our success couldn’t be real. Meanwhile, we stayed humble. In 2013, we won 12 games and made it to Atlanta with wins over Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M. We beat five nationally ranked teams. And we were picked fourth in the East in 2014.
I didn’t care. I barely knew about those preseason rankings. Our players were aware of those things, and it became an obvious motivator for them. We had great players that were hungry to prove we could sustain that success.
We played at Toledo in the second game of the season. That was a very odd day, my first game coaching at the Glass Bowl since I left there after the 2000 season. We put that game on the schedule as a favor to Toledo, but it was a scary situation. I told our players the history of Toledo’s program and their tradition of beating power conference teams. Before my time at Toledo and after my time at Toledo, the Rockets knocked off teams they were never supposed to beat. We had to be ready. The fans there were very kind to me that week—but they would have loved nothing more than a big upset over an SEC team. We survived 49–24 with Maty throwing five touchdowns.
We cruised through our first three games, giving us 15 wins in our last 17 games. It reminded me of 2008 when we started hot and had things rolling over a two-year period. I don’t think I did a very good job making sure our players kept that edge this time. We lost that edge when we played Indiana at home. We had beaten the Hoosiers in Bloomington the year before, so maybe our players assumed we’d easily handle them at home the next year. If so, that’s my fault. They got after us and scored a touchdown in the final minute to win by four. Our defense played much better the rest of the season, but that was a difficult loss to overcome.
The next week we went to South Carolina where our struggles continued. But we made just enough plays down the stretch to erase a 13-point deficit and win 21–20.
I told our team after that game, “We’ve got to do more. We’re the hunted now. We used to be the hunters. There’s no more sneaking up on anybody.”
Any momentum we captured didn’t last. We turned over the ball five times against Georgia the next week in a 34–0 loss, just the second time we’d been shut out in 14 years. I’d never been part of a game like that. We just gave the ball away on a few of those turnovers. Our defense played okay, but it’s hard to overcome five turnovers.
I went home after that game and said a prayer. “God, why isn’t my team ever on the right side of a five-turnover game?” I’d never had a game handed to me like we handed that one to Georgia. Just once it would have been nice.
We went to Florida the next week with a 4–2 record. My prayers were answered. Kickoff return, touchdown. Punt return, touchdown. Interception return, touchdown. Fumble return, touchdown. You can’t make this up. We went from getting pummeled at home against Georgia with five turnovers to building a 42–0 lead at Florida midway through the third quarter. I looked up at the sky and wondered, Am I in Coaches Heaven? That’s the place where everything works out for coaches all the time. And on that day, it did. Once we got into the third quarter and had that big lead, I wanted to go conservative. I told Josh Henson and our offensive staff to slow down the tempo and run the ball. I wanted this game over as fast as possible. We didn’t need flashy offensive numbers—just a win. We won 42–13 and passed for only 20 yards.
We won the next two games at home over Vanderbilt and Kentucky to clinch another bowl trip and, suddenly, we were in the hunt for the SEC East again.
We always put a big emphasis on the month of November. “Those who win in November will be remembered.” It sounds corny but it’s absolutely true. And our teams developed a reputation for winning in November starting in 2007.
2007: 4–0 in November.
2008: 3–1 in November.
2009: 3–1 in November.
2010: 3–1 in November.
2011: 3–1 in November.
2013: 4–0 in November.
At 7–2, we went to Texas A&M and won by a touchdown with a great second half. We took care of Tennessee the following week in Knoxville. That set up another home finale for the SEC East crown. If we beat Arkansas at home, that would be it. We would be SEC East champions and would head back to Atlanta. It was the first time we would play Arkansas as our new cross-division rivals. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, a sold-out crowd watched us struggle to move the ball. We trailed 14–6 headed into the fourth quarter but quickly tied it on a touchdown pass and two-point conversion. From there, our defense made stand after stand. Marcus Murphy ran in the winning touchdown and our defense did the rest with Markus Golden recovering a late fumble to preserve a 21–14 win. We were back-to-back SEC East champs, again in a season when nobody outside of our locker room expected us to challenge for the division.
Our reward? Top-ranked Alabama and my old teammate Nick Saban, who had his team on a mission that fall.
As a player, Nick was a great competitor, and as a young coach on Coach James’ Kent State staff, Nick’s sincerity always stood out to me. I was still a senior during his first year as a graduate assistant. I’d watch him coach the other guys and he was a natural, just very genuine with the players. Nick bounced around college football and coached at five different schools, then the NFL’s Houston Oilers before landing his first head-coaching job at Toledo. After one year back in the Mid-American Conference, Nick spent four years on Bill Belichick’s staff with the Cleveland Browns then returned to college as the head coach at Michigan State and later LSU, where he won a national championship in 2003. Nick spent two years coaching the Miami Dolphins, then he returned to the college game in 2007 at Alabama and continued a career I bel
ieve is unparalleled in college football. He’s won five national championships, including four at Alabama in a seven-year span.
Not since scholarships were reduced to 85 per team in 1992 has anyone come close to matching Nick’s success. I would suggest it might not ever happen again in college football. His APR rankings are very good. His kids graduate. It’s not just a football factory in Tuscaloosa. If he’s not the best coach in college football, who is? His two influences were Don James and Bill Belichick. That’s a pretty good tandem. Nick runs a structured, disciplined program. He believes in the process and preaches a strong infrastructure. He does things the right way for the right reasons. He should go down as the greatest coach in college football. And that’s based on results, not because he’s my friend.
• • •
Nick’s Crimson Tide were just too good for us that day in Atlanta. Shane Ray, our All-American defensive end, was ejected in the first half on a targeting call. We never quite recovered and lost 42–13.
Of course, we were disappointed with the outcome. That made me 0–4 in conference championship games at Missouri—and 0–6 overall as a head coach going back to Toledo. But this team had reasons to be proud. We had two difficult losses early in the season but recovered to win the division and earn an invitation to another good bowl game. The Citrus Bowl chose us to play Minnesota in Orlando on New Year’s Day. This was the first year of the College Football Playoff and the entire bowl selection process changed. The Citrus Bowl had the first selection of SEC teams that weren’t chosen for the playoff bowls. That was a strong statement for our program.
Shane Ray and Markus Golden played that game like they had all season and dominated from the edges of our defense. In his final college game, Markus earned MVP honors with one of his finest games: 10 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and a forced fumble. We recruited Markus out of Affton High School in St. Louis, but he needed some time at junior college before he joined us in 2012. When he first got to campus, he walked into my office, got about three feet from my face, and said, “Anything you ask me to do, Coach, anything academically, socially, in the weight room, on the field, anything you ask me to do, I’m going to do it.” I thought that was so cool. This kid, for some reason, felt this program was really going to help him. He was already invested before ever playing a game. Now with the Arizona Cardinals, Markus is already one of the great young defensive players in the NFL.
Shane was one of several great defensive players we had at Mizzou, one of several NFL first-round draft picks, and one of several All-Americans. But he was unrivaled as a competitor. I put him in an elite category of competitors, right there with Jack Lambert, my former teammate at Kent State, and Steve Emtman, the great defensive lineman at Washington. Shane needed to grow up a lot in our program before he could become a great player. He had an attitude—and not the good kind. We didn’t want grumpy guys around the program, but sometime after his second year in the program, he changed dramatically. You’d see him in the practice facility and he’d have a smile on his face. He’d give you a hug. He lost that scowl that he’d worn for two years. Life’s better when you have a great attitude. It was no coincidence he became a great player when his attitude changed. Like Markus in Arizona, Shane has become an important part of the Denver Broncos’ defense.
For me, personally, my football life had come full circle. Way back in 1972, our Kent State team played in its first Division I bowl game at the Citrus Bowl. Here I was 42 years later going back to Orlando for another bowl game. It was my 23rd bowl game as a player or coach. Little did I know it would be my last.
• • •
Before that 2014 season, I made a decision that changed the course of my life. But first, let’s rewind a couple years. We played a day game at Tennessee in 2012. I had plans that night in Columbia, my first date with Missy Martinette, a magazine publisher from the Lake of the Ozarks who I had known socially through mutual friends. Her magazine had done a cover story on me a few years earlier. I later found out I was her most difficult interview. We planned to meet at a sushi restaurant in Columbia, but of course, the game went into overtime. Then double overtime. Then triple overtime. Then quadruple overtime. Missy was back home watching every second and would later say she stopped thinking about the dang date. She just wanted the Tigers to win!
We’d have to push back our date, but that was okay. We needed every win we could get that year, and that was a huge emotional victory for our program.
Eventually, after our four-hour game, I got back to Columbia and Missy drove up from the Lake to meet for a late dinner. I had been separated for almost a year, but it was odd being on a date. I was nervous. Obviously, I’m a public figure in Columbia—and all around the state—so I’m under a microscope in any social setting. I was aware of that, but it didn’t stop me from having a life.
Over the next year or so, our relationship just evolved. There was no magical moment when I decided it was time to take things to another level. But over time we grew closer and more serious.
Missy was born in Columbia and grew up in Kansas City. Mizzou was her team. She graduated from MU, just like both of her parents. The basement in her family’s home was decorated in black and gold with all kinds of Mizzou memorabilia. She was seven years old the first time she tailgated at Memorial Stadium. Naturally, we were a great match.
Missy has two children, Mira and Jace, who were in elementary and middle school when we started dating and just a bit older than some of my grandchildren, so this was obviously a different experience for me. She’s done a remarkable job raising them. As we got more serious and her kids grew into teenagers, it took some adjustment on my part. Missy could have moved to Columbia to run her magazine from there, but her kids were in school at the Lake. Back at Toledo, my goal was to make sure all three of my kids graduated from the same high school. This situation was similar. The last thing I wanted to do was make Missy’s kids move to Columbia, change schools, and disrupt their lives. It was on the adults, Missy and I, to adjust, not the kids. So I’d travel back and forth between Columbia and the Lake. I’d use that drive from Columbia to make my recruiting calls.
In July 2014, Missy and I flew to New York City for a quick getaway. We made dinner plans and got a rooftop table at a restaurant in the city. A DJ was playing music for the dinner guests, but I pulled out my phone and ear buds to listen to another song. I popped one bud into my ear, handed Missy the other one. She looked at me a little confused. I then played the song “Marry Me” by Train. I pulled out a ring and asked her to be my wife. Thankfully, she said yes. Life was about to change, a lot.
Mizzou vs. Texas A&M
November 30, 2013 Columbia, Missouri
Beat Texas A&M in the regular-season finale and we clinch the SEC Eastern Division and book a trip to Atlanta for the SEC championship game.
Team Meeting, Thursday, November 28, 3:30 pm
“I know how badly you want this. On Sunday, December 9, 2012, at last year’s team banquet, this is the last thing I said to the players who would be returning for 2013. Before I sat down I told all of you, ‘This was the most adversity I’ve experienced in 35 years of coaching. I’m very sorry that our season didn’t finish the way we wanted to. It’s hard to win. But the challenge to all the returning players and coaches is to compete next year for an SEC championship and to get right back to our winning ways.’
“Then we started the countdown. On January 23, we had our first workout in the Winning Edge program. There were 220 days until our first game when you walked in that locker room. On March 12, there were 173 days until our first game when the seniors decided on our 2013 slogan: ‘Leave nothing, take everything.’ On May 28, there were 96 days until our first game when summer ball began. You busted your ass as a football team. On July 31, there were 32 days until the season’s first kickoff when we began fall camp. Our seniors established our goals and created our vision for the season. On August 31, we opened the sea
son against Murray State. The rest is history.
“Finally, you should be very confident because you know how to care. You know how to grind. You believe in each other. You trust your teammates and coaches. We’re going to play our best game of the 2013 season Saturday night at 6:45. About a month ago we started this November grind. We won three pressure-packed games. There is one game left in November. Texas A&M is in our way…and we have to take them out!”
Final: Missouri 28, Texas A&M 21
Henry Josey’s 57-yard touchdown gallop was the difference as we celebrated our first SEC East championship. Our fans rushed the field to celebrate our fourth win over a ranked team and our fourth straight November victory.
9. 2015: Season of Change
After our second straight division championship, I agreed to a new contract in March 2015 with an extension through 2021 that put my new salary in the top half of the SEC. We had been negotiating terms for months and had to work past some major changes the university wanted to make to my guaranteed salary and incentive clauses. We were able to work out the terms and announced the deal in April, just before my 63rd birthday.
That same week, I noticed a lump on the right side of my neck.
I’ve always been very health conscious. I think that probably has to do with my brother and sister. I had a swollen lymph node. Missy thought maybe it was the sign of an oncoming cold. I went to my doctor to get it checked out, and he thought I could wait a few weeks to see if the swelling went down.
If I ever sensed anything wrong with me, I usually went to Rex Sharp, our team trainer. I showed it to Rex and told him what the doctor said. I didn’t have to say anything more. “You want me to get you an appointment,” Rex said. Yes, I did.