Missouri head football coach Gary Pinkel will resign after the 2015 season due to health issues, according to Missouri Tigers team website. Missouri athletic director Mack Rhoades said that Pinkel would remain the head coach through Dec. 31, or until the university finds a new coach.
Pinkel was diagnosed with lymphoma in May and received multiple treatments in May and June. Doctors indicated that his treatments wouldn't interfere with his job as head coach, and he decided to continue to coach this season.
Pinkel informed his staff and team of the news Friday evening and will address questions after their game against BYU this Saturday. "I made the decision in May, after visiting with my family, that I wanted to keep coaching, as long as I felt good and had the energy I needed," said Pinkel, via Missouri Tigers team website. "I felt great going into the season, but also knew that I would need to re-assess things at some point and I set our bye week as the time when I would take stock of the future. After we played Vanderbilt, I had a scheduled PET scan on Oct 26 for reassessment, and then visited with my family and came to the decision on October 27 that this would be my last year coaching. I still feel good physically, but I decided that I want to focus on enjoying my remaining years with my family and friends, and also have proper time to battle the disease and give full attention to that."
Missouri has been at the front of headlines over racial tensions at the university. The university President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin have stepped down from their positions this week. While the university is trying to heal itself over the racial tensions, their football program has already lost a chance at a star recruit.
Sci Martin is a 3-star defensive end and the 42nd player in the state of Louisiana, and he has now removed Missouri from his top five list of schools, according to Sam Spiegelman of SEC Country. Martin has narrowed his list down to LSU, Utah, TCU and Oklahoma. "Their campus is going out of control," said Martin, via SEC Country. The high school defensive end is garnering a ton of attention from college programs, but he has decided that Missouri is not the right fit for him.
The Tigers have lost four straight games and face a 7-2 BYU Cougars team at Arrowhead Stadium this Saturday. Expect Missouri's players to come out fired up, as they will want to play hard for their coach in his final three games. The Tigers are 4-5 on the season, and will need to run the table to possibly get a bowl game. While Pinkel is done coaching after this season, he may stay associated with the program, as Rhoades and him have been discussing other roles that he could possibly fill.
