Can The Gary Pinkel Scheme Work In The SEC?
By Ryan Wooden
November 17, 2012; Columbia, MO, USA; The Missouri Tigers helmet sits on a bench during the second half at Faurot Field. The Syracuse Orange defeated the Missouri Tigers 31-27. Mandatory Credit: Dak Dillon-USA TODAY Sports
Yes.
That’s the most direct answer that I can possibly articulate. That’s because the question is CAN the Gary Pinkel scheme work in the SEC and not WILL the Gary Pinkel scheme work in the SEC.
However, the longer version of the answer to this question, once again, deals with perception versus reality.
Somehow lost in the seamless transition into this new era of SEC football, with expansion and television revenue and national perception all at the forefront of what drives this conference, is that change isn’t always easy. Just as Texas A&M illustrated that with the right coach and the right personnel on the field a team can take the SEC by surprise, the Missouri Tigers illustrated that this conference can still take a program and devour it.
The immediate success of A&M and the prominence of their rise has masked that fact that Texas A&M is the exception and not the rule. In the past 20 years, the SEC has added four member institutions, having tacked on Arkansas and South Carolina in 1992 in addition to Texas A&M and Missouri last season.
And while Texas A&M was able to scrape out 11 wins, including a signature victory over the conference’s reigning power, Alabama, everyone else that has been new to the conference has followed a trajectory more similar to that of Missouri’s.
We (myself included) often choose to speak about the SEC in platitudes because pinpointing exactly what makes surviving in the SEC so difficult seems impossible at times. It’s a league full of quality coaches, quality players, seemingly unlimited resources, natural geographic advantages and plenty of other things that SEC fans from throughout the conference would be happy to tell you all about.
However, Gary Pinkel is undoubtedly one of those quality coaches. He’s proven that in the past 22 years at both Toledo and Missouri, compiling 163-98-3 record over that time.
Of course, after a 5-7 season in his first year in the SEC, it’s easy for us to forget exactly how successful Gary Pinkel has been at Missouri, a program that, while never dominant in the Big 12, Pinkel built into a consistent winner after seven years of ho-hum under Larry Smith.
People ignored the fact that Pinkel’s first season was plagued by injury and that, despite what we saw Kevin Sumlin and Texas A&M do, the learning curve in the SEC is generally a little steeper. Instead they blamed Gary Pinkel’s system.
One of those aforementioned platitudes that we’ve subscribed to for so long is that the SEC is this rough and tumble conference, and defensively, I think you can say that it really is. For at least the last decade, the SEC has fielded some of the biggest, fastest, strongest, and, quite frankly, downright violent defenses we’ve seen in the country.
However, we’ve seen a variety of offenses succeed in the conference, as well.
Because of Alabama’s recent dominance, we seem to generalize that the only way to succeed offensively in this conference is to line up in heavy sets and run Power down people’s throats, crushing opponent’s trachea from the inside out. But that’s simply not the case.
Auburn and Florida ran variations of the spread offense, albeit spread-to-run versions, on their way to national championships, and Steve Spurrier’s Run N’ Gun offense has been successful in different machinations for over 20 years. I guess the point I’m making is that if you’re tactically sound and you’ve got the personnel, you can succeed with any offense in any conference to a certain degree.
Gary Pinkel happens to be one of the best offensive tacticians in the country, so if you’re asking if his system CAN work in the SEC, that’s why I’m so quick to say yes.
However, that doesn’t mean it will.
November 17, 2012; Columbia, MO, USA; Missouri Tigers quarterback James Franklin (1) passes the ball during the third quarter at Faurot Field. The Syracuse Orange defeated the Missouri Tigers 31-27. Mandatory Credit: Dak Dillon-USA TODAY Sports
Missouri’s issue right now is that they don’t necessarily have the personnel to compete in the SEC. Don’t get me wrong, between James Franklin at quarterback, Dorial Green-Beckham at wide receiver and a healthy Henry Josey at tailback, they have talent; however, they don’t have the kind of depth necessary to survive a full SEC schedule.
When Franklin, Josey and the entire offensive line battled injury in 2012, Missouri’s offense stagnated.
That’s because Missouri, as a state, is more in the mold of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas than it is Florida, Georgia or Alabama. They don’t produce enough talent on their own to truly stock a roster with SEC caliber football players.
In the Big 12, Gary Pinkel system-recruited, spot-scouting states like Texas hoping to scrape up players who fit his scheme. However, with the allure of the SEC on his side, what he’ll need to do is comb Texas and the Midwest for high-major talent who is looking to play in the nation’s best conference. Texas A&M has used the allure of the SEC in exactly that fashion to cut into the Texas Longhorns’ domination of the state.
I suspect Missouri will have to operate in similar fashion if they’re ever going to be successful in the SEC.
Unfortunately, Gary Pinkel doesn’t have the luxury of time. People are expecting him to win and win immediately, and if he doesn’t show significant signs of improvement in 2013, he may not be around in 2014 to continue cultivating a roster capable of competing consistently in the SEC.
For now, he’ll have to hope that the talent he does have stays healthy long enough to squeeze out seven or eight wins. Because if he doesn’t, we’ll be quick to make lazy assumptions that it was because his system isn’t capable of succeeding in the SEC.