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Missouri’s Pinkel turns attention toward finishing season

‘I feel that Mizzou is a great job at a great school and has so much going for it that they’ll find an outstanding coach to move the program forward’.

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What this win means for Missouri: In the first game after Pinkel announced that he will resign at the end of the season after being diagnosed with lymphoma in May, the Tigers are back in the bowl picture and improving to 5-5 on the season.

Earlier this week Pinkel announced that, due to health reasons, he would be stepping down following the season. And as the game wound down, chants of “Gary Pinkel” began to rise from Missouri fans still in the stands.

“Having Coach Pinkel be the first coach to offer me (a scholarship) when I was in the eighth grade hits home”, Boehm added, “and it’s tough to see”.

Missouri answered with arguably its two most important touchdowns of the season. Rather, Pinkel said, his players communicated they were anxious about the health of the hunger striker and that he made a decision to back them. Now Pinkel looks for support from those same players as Mizzou tries to reach another bowl game in his final season. Doctors have been treating Pinkel for lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, since May.

This was not a typical Saturday for the Missouri football program. “You could tell that he didn’t want to do it, but it was out of his hands”.

Pinkel surprised a few Sunday when he backed what had become a teamwide boycott to force the removal of Tim Wolfe as president of the University of Missouri System.

Pinkel, 63, was named Missouri head coach at the end of 2000 after racking up a 73-37-3 record with Toledo.

Today the Tigers could do what they know best and that’s play a few football.

The turnover in administration began after campus groups, including Concerned Student 1950, started protesting the treatment of minorities on the Columbia campus and school leaders’ perceived lack of response to their complaints. He’s been a father and leader to many of us.

Over the years but especially the last 25 or so, Missouri athletics has enabled, conjured or just plain suffered more peculiarities, misfortunes and heartbreaks than any one place should have to endure.

The Missouri offense, which ran the ball dominantly in the first half, struggled to get anything going in the second half which resulted in the team looking very stagnant.

Another touchdown, a 1-yard run by Tyler Hunt in fourth, capped off the win and a week that challenged a team’s will.

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“We really believed we would come here and win, and we thought we were going to win right up until the end”, Mendenhall said, “so this loss stings”. Pinkel and the rest of the team united behind this stance, meaning Saturday’s game wouldn’t have been played and would have lost the university $1 millions dollars if Wolfe stayed in his position.

Missouri Tigers head coach Gary Pinkel gestures during warm ups before a college football game against BYU at Arrowhead Stadium Saturday Nov. 14 2015 in Kansas City Mo. Pinkel announced Friday he is stepping down at the end of the season after being