It is the hallmark of great Missouri football coaches: coming up just short of a national title. Dan Devine came within a single win of the 1960 national championship, while Gary Pinkel twice came within about a quarter and a half of the title game.
Don Faurot, meanwhile, also came up just shy of a ring. He just did it with a different team, and in the middle of his Missouri tenure, no less.
From Bob Broeg’s Ol’ Mizzou: A Story of Missouri Football, recalling the seconds after one of Missouri’s biggest wins, a 7-0 defeat of the Iowa Pre-Flight all-star team to close the 1942 season:
Seconds after the final gun, Missouri players hoisted Coach Faurot onto their shoulders and then unceremoniously dumped him into the deepest snowbank.