Nov. 20, 2006
Missouri Football Head Coach Gary Pinkel
Injury Update
Chase Coffman has a knee strain but we expect him to play (this week). We're getting him an MRI today, but we think he's going to be ok. It's unfortunate that we lost Wil Franklin to a labrum tear. He fell down in kind of an award position after he caught a pass from Chase Daniel. It's obviously a great loss as he's turned into such an impact football player. He's played with such great consistency. I'm disappointed for him, but the good news is it will repair well and he will be 100 percent at a length of time. When the surgery is going to happen, I don't know. They're still deciding that. We'll know that probably in the next few days and we'll keep you informed. We're going to move Jared Perry up (in the depth chart). He's a true freshman and is playing not like a true freshman. He's playing very, very well. Greg Bracey is going to move up as well. Can we slide people around, yeah, we possibly can do that. We do that quite a bit anyway. Formation wise we can put any player anywhere we want. We'll have to look at that and make decisions there. Depth wise, Dominic Johnson moved up ahead of Hardy Ricks. Dominic got back playing for the first time of significance last week and he's moved back to the starting position. DeMarscus Scott moved up ahead of (Stryker) Sulak and (Mike) Cook moved ahead of (Monte) Wyrick. That's been going back and forth there's a lot of competition there.
On The Week Ahead
Kansas certainly is an excellent football team. It's a great rivalry as we all know. It's one of the best in the nation and we're playing an outstanding team that runs the ball well and is playing well right now. Defensively they're very good. They have a young quarterback that I'm impressed with. We're going to see a team that's playing their best football right now. They're tailback is a very good runner. He has a lot of balance and patience. He can accelerate when he needs to and break tackles. He's very durable. He certainly will present a test for us.
We'll get going now. Our kids aren't in school now so they'll get a little extra time and get to sleep a little bit. I know they'll do that, they're college kids. But, they'll also get a little bit of extra time to improve their studies and put in some more for preparation of our game.
On the Loss to Iowa State
That's the hardest loss I've ever been a part of in all my life. The good news is that the truth came out today. I saw Chase Daniel who spoke at the Quarterback Club today and we were walking in together and I told him the call I got. He said, `we really won that then?' I said, `yeah, we really did. But unfortunately we're never going to have it in the record books.'
But we know we won the football game. I think when our players know that it will be put to rest for a little bit and that will be good. There always would have been a cloud hanging over that, did he hold, did he not hold, but the good news is that my football team won. They had a great come from behind victory. Our defense made a stop, forced a bad kick and we drove 80 yards and won the football game. The great catches that Tommy (Saunders) had and other players and the great touchdown drive for a young quarterback who'd never done that. It was great. Unfortunately, it will never go in the record books, but now, as far as they're concerned, in an unofficial standpoint, they're 8-3 and 4-3. I think they did a great job.
On Whether the Loss at ISU Will Motivate Players for the Game against Kansas
Obviously we were angered by it (the loss). By the way, Walt Anderson at the Conference office and head of the officials, I have tremendous respect for him. He could have very easily looked at it and said it was a questionable call and they would have been off the hook real easy. I think it shows his character and certainly I think he represents the Conference well. It doesn't make it (the loss) any easier, but the fact that he was honest is really important. I don't think we need anything extra to play this game. We just want to play it better than we have in the past few years.