Former UW assistant making changes

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Gary Pinkel has just completed a routine post-mortem of his Missouri football team's fourth consecutive victory. He's done this 76 times now in his seventh season as the Tigers' head coach.

So you know what to expect.

Acknowledgment of an opponent well-prepared, even if they weren't.

A nod to what Missouri did well followed by the caution, "We haven't played our best game yet."

But as quarterback Chase Daniel steps into the interview room for an equally predictable session, Pinkel, a former Huskies assistant, steps outside the interview room and nearly whispers words that reveal so much about a man so many Missouri football fans — and even former players — would have sworn was not Gary Pinkel.

"After Aaron O'Neal died," Pinkel said, "I looked back and said, 'I wish I would have hugged him a little bit more when he was around.' "

Aaron O'Neal, then a redshirt freshman linebacker, died the afternoon of July 12, 2005. He collapsed during a voluntary preseason workout at Faurot Field. The Boone County medical examiner, two months later, pronounced the cause of death as viral meningitis.

Missouri still lists O'Neal on its roster, updating his academic class status this season to redshirt junior, as if he is still standing on the sideline, waiting to play his first game as a Tiger. But Pinkel admits that for most of his life, he would have kept these thoughts to himself.

"I've let my guard down," Pinkel said.

Pinkel — after 10 years and a 73-37-3 record at Toledo — was the ultimate authoritarian. He went as easy on his players and the media as a sheet of Grade 16 sandpaper.

"I'm more huggie, grabbie," Pinkel said, searching for the right words. "I've let my guard down. I'd have never done that 10 years ago. But I started trusting my players. Trusting in them.

"I'm having more fun coaching than I've ever had."