St. Louis ? As the Missouri Tigers prepare to play in a third bowl game in four seasons for the first time in a generation, the Reaganesque question of whether the program is better off than it was six years ago when Gary Pinkel took over hardly can be answered in anything but the affirmative.
“We want to do better, and we want to be in a New Year’s Day bowl, and I think Gary Pinkel is the guy who can get us there because he’s already taken us farther than we’ve been in the last 25 years,” said Dick Feldman, a St. Louis attorney and president of the Mizzou Tiger Club-St. Louis.
But partly because of an undaunting nonconference schedule and partly because of understandable hopes of long-deprived fans who want more sooner, at least a faction doesn’t define the season as a rousing success at least not unless MU beats Oregon State on Friday in the Sun Bowl.
“(Those fans) talk about, ‘We’re 8-4, and we’re in the Sun Bowl, but we could be in the toilet next year in a heartbeat,”‘ said Jack Kinney, a St. Louis business consultant and 1969 MU graduate.
“Hopefully, there’s a little bit of continuous improvement going on, but I think what so many fans would love would be what we call ‘breakthrough improvement.’
Look at Wake Forest, Louisville – those are breakthrough improvements.”
St. Louis resident Pierce Liberman, a 1953 MU graduate who doesn’t consider himself anti-Pinkel, sees the postseason games as “low-tier bowls” and added, “I get the impression we’re settling for mediocrity.
“An 8-4 record when you play the teams we play is no big deal.”
In some cases, MU followers grapple with the contradicting sentiments. Any number of factors are at play in the mixed emotions.
Consider, the last time MU went to three bowls in four seasons, there were 14 bowl games in existence for that entire span. Today there are 32.
Also, if MU were to win nine games for the first time since 1969, it would be out of 13, not 11, as that team played.
Pinkel inherited a program that had won an average of 3.71 games a year from 1984 to 2000. In his six seasons, MU is averaging more than six wins.
Some say wins have come against a drab and diluted nonconference schedule. This year it was Division I-AA Murray State, Mississippi, New Mexico and Ohio. Combined record: 42-54.
MU in recent years canceled series with UCLA and Iowa. “That Murray State thing that was no better than a scrimmage,” Liberman said.
Then again, that was part of the model Kansas State used to go from being the worst program in college football history to a powerhouse for better than a decade not to mention beating MU 13 times in a row until this season. Moreover, it’s not MU’s fault that Mississippi of the vaunted Southeastern Conference is down.
With a weak schedule, however, to some the definition of the season hinges on how MU fares against Oregon State.
Unabashed optimist that he might be, perhaps Feldman offers the broadest perspective.
“In my mind, this guy is doing a remarkable job because he’s raised the expectations so high,” he said. “I think you have a lot of people who feel the way I do, and I think you have a lot of people on the other extreme: that until we win a Big 12 championship the world is horrible and this guy will never be able to coach.”
