Former University of Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel and former University of Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops have been named as nominees for the 2021 induction in the College Football Hall of Fame.
A total of 78 players and seven coaches from the FBS level, and 99 players and 33 coaches from the divisional ranks, are among the group. The NFF Honors Court will select the 2021 class early next year.
Arriving at Missouri after a successful 10 year run at Toledo, Pinkel quickly begin to remake a Tiger program that finished 3-8 in 2000. By 2003, MU was 8-5. By the time Pinkel retired in 2015, Mizzou had won five divisional titles between the Big 12 North and SEC East, and, for one memorable week in 2017, reached the #1 ranking in the country for the first time since 1970. Twenty-six of Pinkel’s players at Mizzou were chosen in the NFL Draft. His teams went 6-4 in bowl games, and finished with winning records 10 out of 15 years.
In 25 years as a head coach, Pinkel was 191-110-3. In his time at Toledo (1991-200), the now 68-year old Pinkel’s Rockets won the MAC West three times and the MAC championship once, while named MAC Coach of the Year in 1995. He has since been inducted into the Toledo Athletics Hall of Fame.
While Pinkel’s surge of success at Missouri came perhaps more dramatically than at tradition-rich Oklahoma, Bob Stoops took over a Sooner program in the late 1990s that had hit lean years. In 18 seasons in Norman, Stoops brought OU to success at a whole new level, with 10 Big 12 titles, 14 double-digit win seasons, and the 2000 national championship. Upon his 2016 retirement, Stoops’ 190 wins at Oklahoma are the most in program history, surpassing legends like Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer.
Photo credit – Alex Heuer / St. Louis Public Radio / St. Louis, MO
