Former Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel likes to say the 2015 season didn’t come with a survival manual. Coming off back-to-back appearances in the Southeastern Conference championship game, the Tigers won their first three games — and then disaster unfolded.
• Starting quarterback Maty Mauk was suspended not once but twice and later kicked off the team.
• Team members got involved with a campus protest over the university’s handling of several racially charged incidents, leading to a brief player-led boycott of team activities.
• In November, Pinkel announced his retirement plans and revealed that he’d been diagnosed with lymphoma earlier in the year.