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Is Gary Pinkel the right man for this job?
Posted by Gene Claude on December 15th, 2008 under Football
I am one of the biggest Gary Pinkel defenders on Earth. I defended Gary Pinkel after the debacle that was the 2004 season. Stay the course, I said. Slow and steady wins the race. I defended the decision to pull Chase Daniel’s redshirt. Get him some experience, I said. Trust in the coaching staff. The nascent AT staff had a friendship-threatening debate at the MU v. Arkansas State game in 2005 at Arrowhead: Could Pinkel win? Was he just a MAC coach in over his head? I was his only, or at least the most vocal (which likely meant “least passed out”) defender. I’m a company man, what can I say.
By last December, I felt like Nostradamus. The real one, not the Dumbass Slim version. By the end of this September, I was ready to pledge unending fealty to the Pinkel Clan. The last two months of this rather disappointing season, though, have knocked the scales from my eyes. Well, not really, but I am ready to acknowledge some serious flaws and consider whether I should continue on in my role as Pinkel fanboy. The flaws:
Flaw #1: Criminal stubborness / loyalty. Hey, I thought it was neat that Pinkel had held together the same management team for his entire tenure at Missouri. How often does that happen in a successful business? Wait, never? I wonder why? Perhaps because if your managers are good, they get hired to work elsewhere; if they are bad, you should fire them. I express no opinion about the strengths/weaknesses of individual coaches (here), but the fact that none had been hired before this offseason (and none other than Bruce Walker had been seriously considered, as far as I know), and Pinkel had never seriously considered letting any go is not necessarily a sign of solid management.
Likewise, nobody is going to confuse Pinkel with Deep Blue when considering the world’s game masters.
This is a man who once ran a fake field goal on 4th and goal from the 9 under the following conditions: (1) down by 6, on the road early in the 4th quarter; (2) after taking a delay of game penalty because the opposing team was screaming “FAKE” on the first attempt; (3) and called a run up the middle. To strain the chess analogy, this is the equivalent of picking up your queen and sticking it in your ass. I could go on for pages, but suffice to say that Pinkel has had more ugly boners during his employment than Randy West.
It is disturbing enough for your head coach’s tactical decisions to be indistinguishable from those made by a stoned 18 year old Madden combatant, but listening to post-game pressers makes you wonder if Pinkel and staff even realize their gaffes. For example, after the A&M fake field goal debacle, Pinkel said this:
We thought we were in a good position to go for it and it didn’t work. We felt real good about it and we worked on it in practice. It’s a great decision if it works.
What? A good position to have your 220 pound wide receiver/holder run up the middle is 4th and 9 when you are down 6 and the other team is screaming “FAKE?” Anyone who watched the tactical monstrosity that was the second half of the Kansas game knows that these are not just ex-post CYA statements; no, Gary Pinkel really does not recognize his tactical blunders. He has not taken any steps toward identifying his own weaknesses and working to correct them. You can drag him to the AA meeting, but until he gets behind the podium and accepts his problem, he’s going to be off the wagon in no time.
More disturbing than the tactical in-game blunders are the systemetic strategic struggles. This is a guy who hit the recruiting equivalent of the Powerball in Brad Smith and tried to turn him into a pocket passer. More recently, he and his minions were unable to find an effective approach for a defense laden with NFL talent (and, arguably, could not find an effective approach for an offense sporting the school’s all time best QB and two sure-fire NFL receivers). It isn’t that Pinkel and his staff can’t design an effective offense or defense on paper, it’s more that when their plans don’t survive contact with the enemy, their backup plans look postively Rumsfeldian. “Work hard and execute better” seems to be the one-size-fits-all Plan B.
Flaw #2: Unskilled football players. I’m willing to give the administration an incomplete on this one, in light of the expected matriculation of Coffman, Maclin, Moore and Ziggy Hood (at least) to the NFL this year. But consider Phenomenal’s earlier missive: Prior to this year, Gary Pinkel , during his Mizzou tenure, had sent fewer players to the NFL than Bob Stoops did in 2005. He sent fewer players to the league than did Iowa State and Baylor. And it isn’t like the players he sent to the NFL were even good. No offense to Brad, Mosely and Gage, but they are hardly NFL stars. Hell, the latter two weren’t even Pinkel recruits. A coaching staff of Bear Bryant, Hannibal and Sun Tzu isn’t going to win in the Big 12 with no impact athletes.
So the question becomes, does Pinkel have a recruiting problem or a coaching problem? Consider this: Prior to the 2009 draft, Pinkel has never had an offensive lineman or a d-back play in the NFL (Tony Palmer and Shirdonya Mitchell saw hyper-limited action on a couple occasions, I don’t count this). These are the two positions that, arguably, you should be able to find diamonds in the rough you can coach up to become polished stars, right? Pinkel has never had a cornerback drafted at Mizzou. By way of comparison, Texas’ last four starting cornerbacks are playing in the league. As a further indictment, most draft cognoscenti project that Domonique Johnson, a starting cornerback who transferred from Mizzou after the 2006 season, will be drafted this year. Why did Johnson leave? We may never know the entire story, but rumors were that he was unhappy with the instruction he was receiving and how it impacted his ability to play at the next level.
Further, I have struggled to identify players that have clearly progressed under Pinkel’s coaching. Last year, I would have proudly identified William Moore as a shining example, but he seemed to either regress this year, or repeatedly be put in positions not to succeed. The staff informed us that Ziggy Hood “had NFL measurables” as a freshman, while he has been good, he has hardly been a dominant college lineman. The skill position players, especially Maclin, Rucker and Coffman, certainly seem to have progressed, but I cannot identify one member of the secondary or line that has gone from unheralded to college star under Pinkel’s watch. I guess William Moore might qualify.
One thing you can say about Pinkel’s players, though, is that they are disciplined, on and off the field, and have largely bought into the system. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a story about the family atmosphere and attitude around the Missouri program or how Pinkel has turned around perceptions of the program in St. Louis and elsewhere. Think what you will about the players’ physical abilities, but there is no denying that Pinkel is consistently turning out solid citizens that stay out of trouble and work hard. In most sports, meh. Give me 5 Mike Beasleys and you can have all the Wojos you want; I’ll kick your ass all week and twice on Sundays. But in college football, you can build a consistently winning program just by focusing on recruiting a base of solid kids with good work ethics that buy into your system. I don’t believe it is a coincidence that most of the out of state kids recruited by Missouri have solid family backgrounds and a very low attrition rate once they get on campus. Contrast that with the death rasp of the Larry Smith years (give yourself a bonus star if you recognize this name): Mike Clay.
Conclusion. Here is what I really think: Pinkel’s biggest flaws are also the characteristics that allowed him to pull Missouri football from the quagmire of suckitude in which we wallowed for so long.
Gary Pinkel and his staff are ridiculously stubborn, loyal men who fervently believe in the Gospel of Don James and the Holy Program. Like with the Apostles, you can debate the wisdom of the master’s teachings or the disciples’ understanding of such, but certainly not their devotion. I believe this character trait, more than anything else, allowed Pinkel to turn the moribund Missouri football program around. Pinkel’s stubborn devotion to The Holy Program allowed him to navigate the bumpy path that came with taking over a once righteous program beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.
A man with less devotion, more susceptible to the fickle winds of popular opinion would have wavered. He would have fired some coordinators, he would have changed things up, he would have signed 19 JUCOs, he would have taken some chances on questionable point guards…er, recruits. Not Pinkel: won’t, can’t, didn’t. He continued to focus on The Holy Program, his belief in the development of well rounded humans and a sense of program was both necessary for Missouri football’s revival, and perhaps a cap on Missouri football’s potential. With the Tigers taking a few more chances nationally in recruiting “stars,” and a fortuitously timed bumper crop of Show Me athletes, just maybe the talent trend line is turning around and Flaw #2 can be forgotten.
So, after the roller coaster ride that was Chase Daniel’s career, I find myself back to where I was in that box at Arrowhead in September 2005: Recognizing Pinkel’s flaws (even if he refuses to) while simultaneously believing he is the right man to lead this program forward.
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Phenomenal Smith said:
December 15th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Great work. I agree that Pinkel is the man (I was skeptical in September 2005). I believe this partly because we’ve won the last several years, and partly because we have a clean, respectable program about which we can be proud. After the Quin/Clemons fiasco that was Mizzou basketball – after that supremely embarrassing time in my fanhood – the clean program is the first step to happiness. I feel like our football program is in good hands for the next 10 years, and say this realizing there are bound to be some down years on the field.
To strain the chess analogy, this is the equivalent of picking up your queen and sticking it in your ass.
Great line.
Euclid said:
December 15th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I vividly remember our discussion in that box at the crumby game in 2005. I think the game started about 9am, so we weren’t all passed out.
Even though AtomicTeeth was only a tingle in the loins of JR Slim in 2005, I am pretty sure you wrote this piece back then. Sure, you probably had to change a name or two here or there, but your views and postions remain substantially unchanged from those you so ardently voiced back then. Congratulations.
I too believe we have the right guy and after having lived way too many 4 or 5 year and out coaching performances, I am very excited to actually have a “program.”
I look at programs like Auburn, who at the time of our infamous Arrowhead debate were coming off of an undefeated season where they didn’t get to play in the NCG, but finished second overall. A short time later the same coach is being fired after a subpar effort. Now they are hiring Chizik. These stories usually don’t have a happy ending.
Ours might not end pretty either, but at least we have stuck with it, something I might not have done that if I had been in charge three or four years ago.
Gene Claude said:
December 15th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
A few years ago, I thought that Pinkel’s mean season would be 8-4 and if things broke right, 11 – 1 and a shot at the title game. I’ve actually revised my expectations upward somewhat. His ability to recruit has been better than I expected, althought that could be an anomaly based on some very good Missouri talent being available at the right time, and Chase Daniel’s prominence in Texas. That is one reason I really hope that we end up with Daniel on the staff in the coming years; a high profile TExas recruiter could be the difference between a mean of 8 – 4 and perennial North championships.
Euclid, as I recall, Frankfurter and some others had not yet gone to bed when the game started, leading to the passing out comment.
Euclid said:
December 15th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Right you are. I do recall that BH wasn’t in that good a shape. Myself, I had a very solid night of sleep.
JR Slim said:
December 15th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Excellent post. However, the biggest problem Missouri has faced under Pinkel is a lack of talent, as previously demonstrated by Phenom. While you may argue that Pinkel and his staff should have done a better job recruiting, just how in the hell were they supposed to do that with a program that had a recent tradition of misery? As you point out, others have taken shortcuts, whether it be by signing a ton of JUCOs or just outright cheating. Pinkel chose neither and, therefore, his path to success is a long one. I believe that Coach Pinkel is the right man for the job and will continue to build a solid program with a winning tradition of which we can all be proud. Is he good enough to mold top talent into a national title winner? I don’t know, but at least he will get us to the next level and it will then be easier to recruit a superstar can’t miss coach to take us to title town. Regardless, we will win under Pinkel and we will have a reason to be optimistic every September. That makes me happy.
Chet Gristler said:
December 16th, 2008 at 12:50 am
I’m very interested to see what happens next year. I think many assumed our rise from ineptitude to mediocrity coincided with the presence of Brad Smith. Did our rise from mediocrity to legitimacy coincide with Chase Daniel? I think next year is the most important year the program has had in the last twenty five. Even if this year had gone as planned and Mizzou was in the Fiesta Bowl, a 4-8 clunker next year would be a heap of ‘flash in the pan’ evidence.
I’ve been a Pinkel guy from the start, to a fault. I’ve rationalized all his ‘boners’ away due to the simple fact we were no longer terrible, and anyone that wanted him fired was shortsighted or fourteen. I’d seen enough terrible football. Average football was very refreshing.
I do wish he would burn his 2 pt. conversion card. Think about this…if he doesn’t go for 2 against Kansas early in the third quarter, we are down 2 before the last drive. At first and goal from the 4, can you run out the clock and let Wolfert kick an extra point for the win? If he would have missed it, would have been the first.
Gene Claude said:
December 16th, 2008 at 7:56 am
I agree with both Slim and Chet. The thing about next year, though (come back later today for the exciting conclusion!), is that we have significantly more talent on the roster (especially on defense) than we have before. Graduating defensive players (other than Moore and Hood) is actually going to be a benefit for us, I think.
Maclin, Coffman and Daniel are another story, but we should be good enough on the o-line, in the run game and on defense to have a solid follow up year.
Boo Radley said:
December 16th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Next year is very important. They must keep the momentum they have started. 8-4 or 7-5 next year is successful for me. Losing two All Americans and a Heisman finalist in the same year will be tough, but I think we will be okay. Our skill players are young but Washington, Moore, Jones, Perry, and Alexander should be solid. If Gabbert is decent, I will expect to win 7 or 8 games.
The offense will be interesting next year with Yost in control. Would not surprise me to see us use the Pistol a little more next year with Gabbert’s running ability. Dalton won the Simone in KC, and his rushing numbers were outstanding. Their running ability may add another demension.
Sheriff Blalock said:
December 16th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I feel like I could have written this. I have said Pinkel should be fired for half of one game, then luckily Brad Smith got knocked out of the game, and Chase saved Pinkel’s job against Iowa State in 2005.
Regarding talent and development, Moore is clearly an example of someone who benefited from Pinkel’s system. No one doubted his athletic ability, but the system has brought him the discipline necessary to become an NFL prospect. He’s had much more success in turning marginal college players in to good ones (Colin Brown, Tommy Saunders–who I’d also love to see become a grad assistant, he’s Brock Olivo without the hype) than making NFL prospects out of good college players.
It certainly seems as though more NFL type talent is coming to Columbia, with players like Gabbert and Hoch, and hopefully Richardson too. While I can’t imagine Mizzou being the type of program that routinely has a couple of top picks each year, it seems much more likely that there will be a Mizzou player’s name called on the first day most years.
Phenomenal Smith said:
December 16th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Next year is just as important as ‘99 was. The ‘98 Tigers were fantastic, which is a fact lost to history. ‘99 marked a new era with new team leaders, and the team fell flat (to put it nicely). I don’t expect to see that happening again.
Professor Van Nostrand said:
December 17th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Two big questions:
Will Pinkel continue to be right about quarterbacks? If so, things will be good (not necessarily great)
Will the national spotlight of the last 2 years translate into better talent (especially at DB and D-Line)? If so things will be great.
I agree with Slim – Pinkel is the right man for the job (not in small part because I’ve not heard anyone with an intelligent plan concerning what we would do if we answered that question the other way). But the jury is still out as to whether we jump the shark from decent/solid program to consistent top 15 program.
Gene Claude said:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Keeping Sheldon Richardson in the fold would go a long ways to answering your number 2 in the short run. It isn’t often that Missouri high school football produces a top 10 recruit, much less a top 10 recruit that is a natural defensive lineman. Not to mention a top 10 recruit, natural defensive lineman whose family loves Mizzou. If we lose him, it is difficult for me to project us adding national line talent in the future.
Professor Van Nostrand said:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Amen on Richardson. Richardson + a good Blaine = happy saturdays.
Gene Claude said:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
True. Here’s the quote from Richardson I like to read before I go to bed:
Mitchell Lewis said:
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I agree, Pinkel is the right man. He simply must address our under achieving defense. After Illinois and SEMO “lit” our defense up like a pinball machine, we didn’t see any improvement durring the rest of the season. Being 117 in the country in pass defense with 10 returning D starters from last year indicates a serious problem that never was fixed. Losing 6 or 7 starters from this years defense and the same defensive coaches for next year is scary at the least! Talk all the Offense you want “it will be fine”, but somebody better make some changes with our Defense!
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