Some early Saturday morning musings for you all to chew on until Brian is back in action covering AAU hoops later this morning.
On Friday afternoon, Mizzou announced an extension through 2021 and a raise from 3.2 to 4.02 million for Gary Pinkel. David Morrison tweeted yesterday that Pinkel made 900K in his first year at Missouri. His raise yesterday was nearly the equivalent of his first year's salary. His compensation for radio, TV and apparel contracts are now 842,500 each this year. In 2016, that rises to 867,500. In other words, apparel contract now pays Pinkel nearly what he made in year one.
Some notes about the bonuses: Pinkel gets 25K if the Tigers make the SEC title game plus 60K to distribute among the staff. Pinkel gets 25K and each assistant gets an extra month's salary for a bowl game. Pinkel gets 100K and each assistant gets two months salary for a College Football Playoff game. Pinkel gets 200K for a playoff appearance, 250K for a national title game appearance. Assistants get two months salary in each case.
To me, the most significant thing about yesterday's announcement is that it came on Mike Alden's last business day as the acting athletic director (he has signature power through tomorrow, but not much official business takes place on Saturday or Sunday). Years down the road, when Pinkel and Alden are both long gone, you will not be able to talk about one without talking about the other. They're forever linked in Mizzou lore.
You will get many arguments whether Pinkel is the best coach in Mizzou history. I've said in the past that I didn't think you could put him above Devine or Faurot until he won a league title. Over the last two years, I think I've changed my tune on that. I'm not sure he's number one. But I'm absolutely open to having the conversation. College football is just so much different now than it was then. There are so many more teams that have a chance. I don't tend to put a huge weight on the actual number of wins because Pinkel plays a lot more games than either of those two did and his non-conference schedule pretty much guarantees him 2-3 wins in any given season. Over the course of his career, that's about 50 guaranteed wins (or halfway to the school record). I do think it's worth noting, though, that those games weren't guaranteed wins for most Missouri coaches leading up to Pinkel. So the actual number of wins, not the major factor to me. But Pinkel's overall winning percentage is second only to Devine among coaches who have been at Missouri for at least four seasons. He is better than Warren Powers, who is actually better than Don Faurot.
And more than any stat or number, Mike Alden best put into words what Pinkel has done. Alden was talking about the athletic department, but really, he could have been talking about Pinkel. Asked what his greatest accomplishment as AD was, Alden said (paraphrasing) that Mizzou is much more relevant on the national scene now than it was in 1998. People know who Missouri is. They matter. They didn't in 1998. Trust me, I had graduated that May. Missouri football, outside of the state, didn't much matter. Missouri football, outside the Big 12, didn't matter at all.
I've told this story before, but the first Missouri practice I covered in 2003, I asked someone in the athletic department about Pinkel. The response: "If this guy can't get it turned around, they might as well shut the thing down."
When the book is written about Mike Alden's career at Mizzou (I'm talking figuratively here, I don't really anticipate that book actually being written), chapter one, line one is that he hired Gary Pinkel. Because without Pinkel, Missouri doesn't get a phone call from the SEC. Some will disagree, some will say it's about the TV sets. And, sure, the TV sets matter. But without Pinkel, nobody in Missouri is watching Missouri football so those TV sets don't matter as much. And without a good football program, the SEC doesn't give a rip about Missouri.
Alden deserves credit not only for hiring Pinkel, but for sticking with him. I heard Pinkel talking about this on 810 a week or two ago (much more openly than I'd ever heard him before) and he said when it wasn't real popular to do so, Mike Alden went to the Mizzou administration and said (again paraphrasing) that Missouri football was where it was because it had spent the last 20 years changing coaches at the first sign of trouble. Alden convinced the decision makers that the only way they were ever going to get better was to pick a guy and stick with him. Pinkel was that guy and Alden believed he would get it done even when most others didn't (how many times have we read, "I appreciate everything Gary Pinkel's done, but he's maxed out. He just isn't the guy to get us to the next level." I've got news for you folks: THERE IS NO NEXT LEVEL. Pinkel has had Missouri in four conference championship games. He has twice had them within 30 minutes of a national title game and a third time had them playing for a chance at one (I still don't think the Tigers would have gotten in the playoff with a win over Bama, but it would have been interesting to see what happened). The only "next level" is being better on one day, winning one game. And the only way you knock that door down is to just keep pounding on it. But if Pinkel never does, it's not because there was some fatal flaw in him or his program. His team just wasn't good enough on the right day. There are days Missouri could have beaten three of the four teams it played in the title game (I'm not sure Missouri would have beaten Oklahoma in 2008 if the teams had played 30 times), but it just wasn't THAT day. Twice, I think Pinkel has had one of the four best college football teams in America. He just happened to have played one of the three best teams both of those times (2007 and 2013). Comparing Pinkel to other Missouri coaches, those other coaches never had to play that one extra game.
So for all that Mike Alden may have done wrong (I think he was terrible in times of crisis, I think he tended to shrink at times when Missouri needed him to stand up and I think he had a major hand in the problems and inconsistencies of the basketball program over the last 17 years), the number one thing he did right was hiring Gary Pinkel. There are so many similarities between the two. They aren't flashy. If you talk to them, they're pretty low-key, Midwest type of men. They don't give you exciting sound bites. If you talk to someone outside the state of Missouri and ask them to name the 10 best (or probably 20 best) athletic directors or football coaches, Alden and Pinkel probably get mentioned by a very, very small percentage of them. It doesn't mean those people are right. It just means they don't have an appreciation for the difference in Missouri football and Missouri athletics from 1998 to now.
Alden will leave his post on Sunday. When will Pinkel leave his? After the 2012 season, I thought it was going to be at the end of 2013. I've got no shame in saying that. There was reason to believe it. But Pinkel changed after that 2012 season. You talk to anybody that knows him, anybody that knows the inner workings of his program, he hit 2013 re-energized, ready to prove his doubters wrong. Again. And he did it. After the 2013 season, I'd have said I thought Pinkel's last year would be 2015…2016 at the latest. Now? I think he finishes the contract. He may sign another one at some point, largely for recruiting purposes. To put that in perspective, Pinkel is as of today the sixth longest tenured coach in college football. At a minimum, I think Frank Beamer and Kirk Ferentz will be gone from their current jobs by 2021, which would put Pinkel's 22 years at that point fourth on the list. When Pinkel was hired, I was 24, less than three years out of college. If he finishes this contract, I'll have kid who turns 24 later that year. In this day and age of firing coaches at the drop of a hat, that's unreal. At the end of the 2021 season, Pinkel will be 69 years old. He's got three kids (I think) and grandkids scattered across the state. If he retires at 69, he'll have good years left to spend with them. He'll have left an untouchable wins record at Missouri and firmly established this program's place as a nationally relevant one. Maybe he'll have an SEC title (or more than one). Maybe he won't. But he'll leave a legacy as a guy that did his job longer and better than anyone before him. My personal opinion is that Alden leaves the same legacy (technically I think Mike is the second-longest tenured AD in Mizzou history, but doing that job for 17 years these days is pretty remarkable, to steal a phrase from Alden's biggest hire).
Anyway, some scattered thoughts here and I don't think I really broke any news, but wanted to weigh in with my perspective in light of Pinkel become a four million dollar man on Friday afternoon.
On Friday afternoon, Mizzou announced an extension through 2021 and a raise from 3.2 to 4.02 million for Gary Pinkel. David Morrison tweeted yesterday that Pinkel made 900K in his first year at Missouri. His raise yesterday was nearly the equivalent of his first year's salary. His compensation for radio, TV and apparel contracts are now 842,500 each this year. In 2016, that rises to 867,500. In other words, apparel contract now pays Pinkel nearly what he made in year one.
Some notes about the bonuses: Pinkel gets 25K if the Tigers make the SEC title game plus 60K to distribute among the staff. Pinkel gets 25K and each assistant gets an extra month's salary for a bowl game. Pinkel gets 100K and each assistant gets two months salary for a College Football Playoff game. Pinkel gets 200K for a playoff appearance, 250K for a national title game appearance. Assistants get two months salary in each case.
To me, the most significant thing about yesterday's announcement is that it came on Mike Alden's last business day as the acting athletic director (he has signature power through tomorrow, but not much official business takes place on Saturday or Sunday). Years down the road, when Pinkel and Alden are both long gone, you will not be able to talk about one without talking about the other. They're forever linked in Mizzou lore.
You will get many arguments whether Pinkel is the best coach in Mizzou history. I've said in the past that I didn't think you could put him above Devine or Faurot until he won a league title. Over the last two years, I think I've changed my tune on that. I'm not sure he's number one. But I'm absolutely open to having the conversation. College football is just so much different now than it was then. There are so many more teams that have a chance. I don't tend to put a huge weight on the actual number of wins because Pinkel plays a lot more games than either of those two did and his non-conference schedule pretty much guarantees him 2-3 wins in any given season. Over the course of his career, that's about 50 guaranteed wins (or halfway to the school record). I do think it's worth noting, though, that those games weren't guaranteed wins for most Missouri coaches leading up to Pinkel. So the actual number of wins, not the major factor to me. But Pinkel's overall winning percentage is second only to Devine among coaches who have been at Missouri for at least four seasons. He is better than Warren Powers, who is actually better than Don Faurot.
And more than any stat or number, Mike Alden best put into words what Pinkel has done. Alden was talking about the athletic department, but really, he could have been talking about Pinkel. Asked what his greatest accomplishment as AD was, Alden said (paraphrasing) that Mizzou is much more relevant on the national scene now than it was in 1998. People know who Missouri is. They matter. They didn't in 1998. Trust me, I had graduated that May. Missouri football, outside of the state, didn't much matter. Missouri football, outside the Big 12, didn't matter at all.
I've told this story before, but the first Missouri practice I covered in 2003, I asked someone in the athletic department about Pinkel. The response: "If this guy can't get it turned around, they might as well shut the thing down."
When the book is written about Mike Alden's career at Mizzou (I'm talking figuratively here, I don't really anticipate that book actually being written), chapter one, line one is that he hired Gary Pinkel. Because without Pinkel, Missouri doesn't get a phone call from the SEC. Some will disagree, some will say it's about the TV sets. And, sure, the TV sets matter. But without Pinkel, nobody in Missouri is watching Missouri football so those TV sets don't matter as much. And without a good football program, the SEC doesn't give a rip about Missouri.
Alden deserves credit not only for hiring Pinkel, but for sticking with him. I heard Pinkel talking about this on 810 a week or two ago (much more openly than I'd ever heard him before) and he said when it wasn't real popular to do so, Mike Alden went to the Mizzou administration and said (again paraphrasing) that Missouri football was where it was because it had spent the last 20 years changing coaches at the first sign of trouble. Alden convinced the decision makers that the only way they were ever going to get better was to pick a guy and stick with him. Pinkel was that guy and Alden believed he would get it done even when most others didn't (how many times have we read, "I appreciate everything Gary Pinkel's done, but he's maxed out. He just isn't the guy to get us to the next level." I've got news for you folks: THERE IS NO NEXT LEVEL. Pinkel has had Missouri in four conference championship games. He has twice had them within 30 minutes of a national title game and a third time had them playing for a chance at one (I still don't think the Tigers would have gotten in the playoff with a win over Bama, but it would have been interesting to see what happened). The only "next level" is being better on one day, winning one game. And the only way you knock that door down is to just keep pounding on it. But if Pinkel never does, it's not because there was some fatal flaw in him or his program. His team just wasn't good enough on the right day. There are days Missouri could have beaten three of the four teams it played in the title game (I'm not sure Missouri would have beaten Oklahoma in 2008 if the teams had played 30 times), but it just wasn't THAT day. Twice, I think Pinkel has had one of the four best college football teams in America. He just happened to have played one of the three best teams both of those times (2007 and 2013). Comparing Pinkel to other Missouri coaches, those other coaches never had to play that one extra game.
So for all that Mike Alden may have done wrong (I think he was terrible in times of crisis, I think he tended to shrink at times when Missouri needed him to stand up and I think he had a major hand in the problems and inconsistencies of the basketball program over the last 17 years), the number one thing he did right was hiring Gary Pinkel. There are so many similarities between the two. They aren't flashy. If you talk to them, they're pretty low-key, Midwest type of men. They don't give you exciting sound bites. If you talk to someone outside the state of Missouri and ask them to name the 10 best (or probably 20 best) athletic directors or football coaches, Alden and Pinkel probably get mentioned by a very, very small percentage of them. It doesn't mean those people are right. It just means they don't have an appreciation for the difference in Missouri football and Missouri athletics from 1998 to now.
Alden will leave his post on Sunday. When will Pinkel leave his? After the 2012 season, I thought it was going to be at the end of 2013. I've got no shame in saying that. There was reason to believe it. But Pinkel changed after that 2012 season. You talk to anybody that knows him, anybody that knows the inner workings of his program, he hit 2013 re-energized, ready to prove his doubters wrong. Again. And he did it. After the 2013 season, I'd have said I thought Pinkel's last year would be 2015…2016 at the latest. Now? I think he finishes the contract. He may sign another one at some point, largely for recruiting purposes. To put that in perspective, Pinkel is as of today the sixth longest tenured coach in college football. At a minimum, I think Frank Beamer and Kirk Ferentz will be gone from their current jobs by 2021, which would put Pinkel's 22 years at that point fourth on the list. When Pinkel was hired, I was 24, less than three years out of college. If he finishes this contract, I'll have kid who turns 24 later that year. In this day and age of firing coaches at the drop of a hat, that's unreal. At the end of the 2021 season, Pinkel will be 69 years old. He's got three kids (I think) and grandkids scattered across the state. If he retires at 69, he'll have good years left to spend with them. He'll have left an untouchable wins record at Missouri and firmly established this program's place as a nationally relevant one. Maybe he'll have an SEC title (or more than one). Maybe he won't. But he'll leave a legacy as a guy that did his job longer and better than anyone before him. My personal opinion is that Alden leaves the same legacy (technically I think Mike is the second-longest tenured AD in Mizzou history, but doing that job for 17 years these days is pretty remarkable, to steal a phrase from Alden's biggest hire).
Anyway, some scattered thoughts here and I don't think I really broke any news, but wanted to weigh in with my perspective in light of Pinkel become a four million dollar man on Friday afternoon.
