Pinkel focuses on Missouri's mental toughness

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Gary Pinkel is mincing no words when it comes to assessing last season at Missouri, his first as coach of the Tigers.

"I would suggest we were one of the slowest, weakest, 'unquick' teams in the (Big 12 Conference) last year," Pinkel told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "To play at a high level in the Big 12? Not even close."

Even worse, Pinkel said, was the lack of toughness for the 4-7 Tigers, starkly illuminated in Missouri's 55-7 season-ending loss to Michigan State. Weeks afterward, Pinkel was still smarting from the loss.

"That was a huge red flag waved in front of my face," said Pinkel, whose Tigers play their annual spring game today. "The bottom line was I've never had a football team play like that before. I would suggest that was the most embarrassing moment I've had, probably, in the 25 years I've been a coach. So, you've got a couple choices. You can let it take you down, or you can use it to take your program to another level."

The immediate aftermath of the loss was to reinforce Pinkel's season-long sense that he had made a key mistake last winter in his approach to off-season workouts.

"Major error. Huge error," he said, vigorously swiveling his head back and forth with each word.

Instead of inflicting on his team the full regimen of so-called "mat drills" that he learned from his former coach and colleague Don James, Pinkel tapered those off in favor of less-demanding agility drills tailored to positions. That was contrary to the approach he took at Toledo, where he went 73-37-3 before coming to Missouri, because he and his staff had moved so many players to new positions at Missouri.

"We were moving guys around like I've never been a part of before," Pinkel said, adding that the adjustment on emphasis was "for all the right reasons, but it was the wrong thing to do."

Adopting old program

So Pinkel this winter resumed the program that he so believes in, and that Florida State coach Bobby Bowden considers a cornerstone of his team's dominance, with the team participating in the punishing 6 a.m. agility and conditioning drills Pinkel says foster character and mental toughness.

"You can't get mentally tougher unless you push yourself to a place you didn't think you could go -- and then you push yourself out of it," he said. "And then your confidence grows. There's no other way to do it. You can't just say, 'Hey, we're tougher.'

"This year, it was the real deal. You could just see us getting tougher. Now, I'm going to say this right here: Are we there yet? No. But that's part of building a program."

Said sophomore center A.J. Ricker: "Your body's telling you you can't do it, but it's something you fight through and get done."

Spring practice has been an extension of that mindset. The team has done far more hitting and apparently is hitting with more conviction: After defensive linemen Nick Tarpoff and Terrell Mills recently suffered mild concussions, Pinkel told reporters, "A year ago, we didn't hit hard enough to get concussions."

And the practice pace has been much more brisk, partly because of familiarity that was lacking last year as Pinkel's new players tried to figure him out, and vice versa.

"You were almost walking on eggshells last year," junior tight end T.J. Leon said.

Said Ricker: "We were kind of like Army soldiers, just marching around doing what he said. We had no clue about the tempo of practice they wanted; the tempo they wanted just seemed unreal."

Now, the Tigers understand what's demanded and are beginning to embrace it, Pinkel said. That attitude has manifested itself in dramatic improvements in strength and speed.