MU tries to bounce back from 5-6 year

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- A year ago, much was expected of Missouri's football team, entering its fifth season under Gary Pinkel with consistently improving results. The Tigers were even eyed as favorites to win the Big 12's North Division title.

Then things fell apart. The team struggled through a five-game losing streak, with three of those setbacks at home, and finished 5-6. Quarterback Brad Smith, mentioned as a Heisman Trophy prospect going into the season, fell short of the previous year's performance, and there was occasional dissension among some of the players.

Now, preparing for a season with the still-unexplained death of linebacker Aaron O'Neal fresh in everybody's mind, the Tigers aren't as highly regarded as they were a year ago. In the annual poll of reporters who cover Big 12 football, Missouri was projected for a fourth-place finish in the North, behind Colorado, Iowa State and Nebraska.

O'Neal, a 19-year-old redshirt freshman linebacker from suburban St. Louis, died last week, collapsing after joining other players in a voluntary workout. With the cause of his death still under investigation, his teammates, gathering for a memorial service on the campus Thursday, have decided to dedicate their season to him.

On Wednesday, the second day of the Big 12 Media Days, Pinkel, Smith, defensive back Jason Simpson and athletics director Mike Alden were in Houston to talk about their team's prospects, not without optimism.

"We are going to do some different things," Pinkel said. "Other players are excited about it and we will get good at it. We are trying to be able to just be more multiple in our attack, do more things."

"We have to throw and catch and rock and roll with it," said Smith.

Smith and other players had expressed their concerns to their coach early on, asking for a meeting to air things out just three weeks after the disappointing season ended.

"That meeting was big," Smith said. "We wanted to talk about what was on our minds, and we didn't want to bite our tongues. We told him what we felt, and it was kind of tough to take, I'm sure, but it was something that needed to be done."

The coach, Smith said, responded that he wished his players had come to him sooner with their concerns.

"There were a lot of things that needed to be fixed and worked on internally with the way we handled each other," Smith said. "That was kinda the first step of getting ready for the season."

Pinkel said the purpose of the meeting was to find how to bring Missouri football to its fullest potential, which he said meant mending relationships between players and between players and the staff.

"When you come off a tough season, I think those things are normal," the coach said. "I don't think this was unusual. I'm just disappointed that we didn't handle it very well, and I'm responsible for that. There were a lot of things that we talked about, and all the things that they talked about were very positive in terms of what we can do to build relationships."

Simpson said that last season Missouri had some "problem guys that we needed to get rid of."

"Now we've got everyone pulling on the same rope in the same direction," he said.

Simpson acknowledged that one of the players he referred to was running back Damien Nash, who publicly criticized the play-calling after one game. Nash later was suspended and eventually quit the team.

While describing Nash as a friend, Simpson said he hurt the team last year.

"You can't have people giving their own opinions of what you could have done, what I could have done," he said. "If you think it, keep it to yourself. If I have something I want to say, I can't say it in front of a bunch of freshmen. It's leadership, man. They're going to turn out the way those guys were. So I'm glad we got rid of them."

Alden said it's a fact of life that major universities have to show performance in their two big sports, football and men's basketball. The Missouri basketball program also disappointed last season, finishing 16-16 and missing the NCAA tournament for the second straight year.

"It's important for an athletic director to realize bad times can happen," Alden said. "It's inevitable. Schools go through NCAA infractions. The odds say it's going to happen. You go through football and basketball seasons that aren't positive. It's how you react that matters."

Alden called Pinkel a very good coach who has done a lot of fine things at Missouri.

"He's a man of high principles and high integrity," the athletics director said. "We're looking forward to the season, and hopefully we'll have some success."