COLUMBIA, Mo. • By the time he could process Friday’s stunning news, Mike Alden thought back to Nov. 3, 2001. That day, Alden, then the Missouri athletics director, stood outside Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo., alongside his first-year football coach. Colorado had just flattened Mizzou 38-24, dropping the Tigers to 3-5 in Gary Pinkel’s debut season.
Right then, right there, Alden knew what he had in his 49-year-old head coach.
“We were standing outside the stadium, just me and him, and Gary said, ‘Mike, I just wish so much I could fast forward this program because I know exactly where we’re headed,’ ” Alden recalled Friday in a phone interview.