The man who made it all possible

The man who made it all possible

 

It’s obvious that Gary Pinkel is making an important point when he frames it around a conversation he once had with his wife, Vicki. He did it twice recently when discussing former quarterback Brad Smith. Both tell the narrative of Missouri’s program in its early stages under Pinkel, the foundation that it stands on today.

“I told my wife once, I said, ‘There’s got to be somebody, a difference-maker who can come in and help us accomplish things,’ ” Pinkel said last week. “He was the catalyst.”

Affirmation came on Aug. 31, 2002, the day Smith took his first college snap in a game, the first day Missouri fans fell hard for No. 16. That day in St. Louis, Smith, an 18-year-old redshirt freshman, played hustler to the marks from Illinois, running for 138 yards, passing for 152 more and leading a 33-20 victory over the defending Big Ten champions.

“I’ll never forget,” Pinkel said, “I was driving home after the game and I told my wife, ‘We’ve got a superstar here.’ ”

Nearly nine years later, “superstar” doesn’t begin to express the impact Smith left on Pinkel’s program and the people he touched in his time at Missouri. Other stars have come and gone in the five seasons since Smith took his last college snap in Shreveport, La. Some surpassed Smith in statistics and victories as Pinkel has upgraded the talent. But no player has sustained the respect and affection that’s still showered on Smith, who on Friday was warmly inducted into MU’s Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame with a roomful of Missouri coaches and former teammates on hand.

As Friday’s scene at the Courtyard Marriott testified, Smith is the most beloved player during the Pinkel era at Missouri.

“I’ve just never met a guy like him,” Pinkel said. “I love him. But the respect I have for him is beyond … I can’t even tell you.”

Here are 16 reasons why No. 16’s legacy is unmatched at Missouri, as told by those who witnessed his brilliant MU career.

1. SO SMOOTH: Others have been faster, but Smith ran like no other — measured not just by yardage but beauty.

“It looked like he was running in slow motion,” said former offensive coordinator Dave Christensen, now the head coach at Wyoming. “And he just kept distancing himself from everyone. It was so smooth and fluid, it looked effortless.”

Smith holds Missouri’s career rushing record with 4,289 yards, but digits barely begin to tell the story.

“What made Brad unique was just the artistry involved with his abilities,” said Bill Connelly, who writes for the MU fan blog Rock M Nation. “A lot of times great players are great in almost standard ways. But seeing him run was such a unique thing. Beyond that — and this sounds like the way Bill Simmons talks about Larry Bird — but after a while Missouri fans could see the runs happen before they actually happened. You could see if he gets that block he’s going to juke that guy and get in the open field. You started anticipating these things. That made it a really rewarding experience to watch him over the course of four years.”

For Smith, the sideline was his greatest sidekick in a con game he’d play with defenders.

“It looked like he was going out of bounds and then he’d just switch gears on you or cut back against the grain really fast,” former fullback T.J. Leon said. “A lot of people pull up because they don’t want to hit the quarterback and risk getting a penalty. So he’d pull up, too, then kick it into another gear or get somebody to just hesitate for a half-second.”

2. THE DEBUT: The first time Smith ran the ball in a college game, he glided down the right sideline against Illinois for a 20-yard gain. Just a week earlier, Pinkel had named Smith his starter over returning senior Kirk Farmer despite some rocky preseason scrimmages, none that produced the kind of dazzling plays he unloaded on Illinois.

But after that first run, Missouri’s Scott Paffrath, playing right tackle that day, could barely believe his eyes.

“Joe Gianino and I and a couple other guys looked at each other and said, ‘Damn. This kid is the real deal,’ ” Paffrath said. “You practice so much against the same team, you don’t know how good you are until the first game. We knew we had something at that point.”

3. YOUNGSTOWN, HIS TOWN: In a plotline straight out of “Forrest Gump,” there was a time when MU’s graceful runner walked awkwardly with braces on his legs, the result of a developmental disorder doctors described as weakened metatarsals. Smith’s early tale of adversity didn’t end there. Smith’s parents divorced, and his mother, Sherri Brogdon, moved her three children away from Los Angeles to live with a friend in Youngstown, Ohio. His legs eventually healed, Smith found Mt. Calvary Pentecostal Church and found football, joining his church’s team, the Sons of Thunder. Soon enough, Pinkel would find him, too.

4. BREAKOUT: For almost a generation, Missouri football was defined by its epic efforts that came short of victory. Smith’s came five games into his college career when a brilliant performance against No. 3 Oklahoma wasn’t enough to pull off the upset. Actually, Smith’s effort was more than enough. Two weeks after losing at Bowling Green, Smith had Bob Stoops’ Sooners staggered with nearly 400 yards of total offense, but a touchdown pass on a fake field goal was the difference in a 31-24 Oklahoma win.

“He single-handedly won that game for us,” Leon said. “I mean, we should have won that game.”

5. THEY HAD NO IDEA: On Jan. 31, 2010, Bishop Norman Wagner, longtime pastor of Smith’s church in Youngstown and the player’s father figure, died at 68. Wagner played a central role in Smith’s recruitment to Missouri, another story Pinkel loves to tell and told again last week.

On a visit to Youngstown shortly after Pinkel accepted the Missouri job, he and then-defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus spent an afternoon meeting with Wagner and other members of the congregation. They had done their research on MU and Pinkel’s background, but the routine seemed a bit much for an unheralded recruit who received little attention outside the local Mid-American Conference.

“They decided they would allow him to go to Missouri,” Pinkel recalled Thursday. “I said, ‘Thank you, sir. That’s very considerate.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got.’ I vividly remember that. And I was very polite and said, ‘Yes, sir, I do.’ He interrupted me and said, ‘Coach, you got no idea.’ And he just smiled at me.

“It was a cold winter day in Youngstown, a lot like today. And as we’re pulling out of the place, Matt Eberflus is driving and I say to him, ‘You know, Matt, that’ll be a great story someday.’ ”

They had no idea.

6. 41-24, PART I: Seventeen games into Smith’s run at MU, his record stood at 9-8 and he’d yet to earn a signature victory. Everything changed on Oct. 11, 2003. That night, with No. 10 Nebraska in town to extend a 24-game winning streak against the Tigers, Smith ran for three touchdowns and scored on a 47-yard reception as Missouri finally toppled Nebraska 41-24. For two decades, the Tigers had craved a playmaker and leader who could stand up to the Huskers and convince Missouri it could win. Smith did just that.

“He was a quiet warrior,” Leon said. “He was a guy in the huddle that didn’t have to say a ton, but you just knew you were going to follow that type of guy.”

7. GOOD SAMARITAN: As fans rushed the field that night, one’s face had an unfortunate meeting with the right fist of Nebraska cornerback Kellen Huston. As if he hadn’t done enough to forever endear himself to MU fans, Smith quickly attended to 21-year-old Matthew Scott of Lee’s Summit, who had slumped to the turf.

“Before he could even think about celebrating, he sees this kid get hit, who he doesn’t know from Adam, and he bends down to help him up,” MU media relations director Chad Moller said. “I just happened to be right behind him, and he says, ‘Hey, this guy just got hit by a player. We need to make sure he’s OK.’ It’s amazing to me that that’s what he was concerned about.”

8. SELFLESS CELEB: As the first true star player of the Pinkel years, Smith was the first player school officials used heavily to promote the team at public events. Hundreds of fans arrived on Faurot Field to meet Smith before the 2004 season as MU later estimated that Smith signed his name more than 800 times in the scorching heat.

“I definitely look back and think there are times when we did too much with him,” Moller said. “Not that we did anything bad or ridiculous, but there were times where I could tell it was wearing on him. But he’d do anything you ever asked him to do. He was the most humble and gracious person you could ever meet. I’d tell people when they asked me what he’s like … he’s just too good to be true.”

9. TECH WRECKED: No player on any team during the 2003 season ran up a day like Smith enjoyed against Texas Tech on Oct. 25. He needed only 19 carries to shred the Red Raiders for 291 yards, the NCAA high for that season and just 17 yards shy of the single-game NCAA record for quarterbacks. He could have gone for more yardage, but five times he had to cut runs short — in the end zone.

Smith’s final carry that day, a 61-yard touchdown, was the vintage Smith run, Connelly said.

“As soon as he faked the handoff, we started celebrating,” he said. “We could tell he was going around the left side. We could tell he was going to juke the cornerback to the ground. And he was going to trot 60 yards for the touchdown. You could see it as soon as it started happening. That was the most quintessential Brad Smith play I can remember.”

10. JUST BRAD: Asked during the 2002 season if he ever had a nickname or wished to have one, Smith answered plainly: “No. Never had one. Just Brad.” It was the perfect response. Rarely, if ever, has Missouri produced a star as genuinely humble. He arrived at MU with an innocence that some mistook for softness. Not so. Instead, he was mature beyond his years.

“Being linemen, we always have a different personality, just having a good time and being loudmouths,” Paffrath said. “We were probably a little rude to each other. But Brad was none of those things. We’re swearing at each other in the huddle, and Brad’s just there, wide-eyed, looking at us like, ‘Are you guys done yet?’ ”

11. 41-24, PART II: With game plans designed to feature Smith’s arm more than his legs, the 2004 season was a disaster as MU regressed to 5-6 after reaching a bowl game the year before. But in 2005, Missouri unleashed Smith, the runner. Operating MU’s new no-huddle, spread offense, he led another 41-24 victory over Nebraska in Columbia, running for 246 yards and three scores while throwing for another 234 yards.

Looking back, Christensen wishes Missouri had more time to combine Smith’s running with Chase Daniel’s passing, but their careers overlapped for only that 2005 season.

“We could have done what the Jets are doing now, and you can just imagine the things we could have invented,” Christensen said. “If he would have been in the offense for three or four years, the things he could have done would have been unbelievable.”

12. MAN OF FAITH: It was no secret that Smith’s Christian faith shaped his identity and lifestyle at MU. He never pushed his faith on others, teammates said, but his convictions made others more comfortable with their own, Leon said.

“He just lived his life so consistently that it drew guys in,” said Leon, now MU’s director of development for the Tiger Scholarship Fund. “When he was able to have those conversations about why he believes what he believes, it made a bigger impact on people who were searching for answers.”

Even those who weren’t overly religious were impressed with Smith’s devotion.

“A lot of people talk the talk, but Brad always walked the walk,” former center A.J. Ricker said. “You’d always see guys who wear the ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ bracelet and all this, but they were such hypocrites. But Brad lived it day-in and day-out. What you see is what you get.”

13. STANDING TALL: In 48 career starts, Smith ran the ball 799 times. He dropped back to pass 1,484 times. Countless collisions ensued, yet Smith was knocked out of games just twice in his career, both for mild concussions, against Ball State in 2002 and against Iowa State in 2005.

Ricker noticed early on that Smith preserved his body with an instinct to curl away from the nastiest hits. Still, Ricker recalled one particularly crushing blow along the sideline that needed to be addressed.

“He jogged back to the huddle,” Ricker said, “and I remember saying, ‘Hey, Brad, this is big-time college football. You need to either slide or get out of bounds. You don’t need to take those shots.’ He just gave me that smile that Brad has. I thought, ‘OK, this guy’s for real.’ ”

“He’s one of the toughest players I ever coached,” Christensen said. “He got lambasted because we had to use him, because he was our best playmaker. … He took some licks, but he just kept coming back.”

14. GRAND FINALE: For a while it seemed Smith’s career would end quietly with a loss to South Carolina in the 2005 Independence Bowl. The Tigers fell behind 21-0 in the first quarter. Maybe Pinkel or parts of his staff would be on their way out, too.

But Smith saved his best for last. MU outscored the Gamecocks 38-10 over the final three quarters as Smith racked up 150 yards on the ground, 282 through the air and accounted for four touchdowns. It was the biggest comeback win in team history and a fitting farewell for the program’s biggest star.

The enormity of the moment wasn’t lost on his coaches.

“He probably saved our careers,” Christensen said.

15. LEAGUE OF HIS OWN: That night concluded a four-year career that produced 69 school, conference and NCAA records. Smith finished his career as the most prolific running quarterback in Football Bowl Subdivision history, a mark that’s since been broken by West Virginia’s Pat White. Smith became the first quarterback in major college football to throw for 8,000 yards and run for 4,000. Nevada’s Colin Kaepernick became the second last season.

Among Smith’s other feats: His 11 runs of 50 yards or more are the most in school history, as are his 45 rushing touchdowns and 18 100-yard rushing games. No other player had more than 12. In 2005, he led the Big 12 in rushing with 1,301, becoming the first quarterback to lead MU’s conference in rushing since Kansas’ Nolan Cromwell in 1975.

“He was a difference-maker from a national standpoint,” Pinkel said. “No matter what conference he goes to, what team he goes to, when he’s on the field he makes a difference.”

16. THE CORNERSTONE: Before Friday’s induction ceremony, Smith was asked about his legacy at Missouri and he mentioned several star players that came before and after his career. Five offensive players have earned All-American honors since he left MU. His successor, Daniel, was a Heisman Trophy finalist.

Would those careers have unfolded had Smith not made Missouri football relevant again?

“There’s a tremendous amount of players who played before me,” said Smith, an NFL free agent who’s played the last five seasons with the New York Jets, “and it’s about carrying on the tradition and making sure the guys do that after me.”

“The shame of Brad’s career was that they really never had enough around him to make them more than mediocre,” said Gabe DeArmond, who covers Missouri for PowerMizzou.com. “But without him there is no Daniel. There is no Chase Coffman. There is no Jeremy Maclin.”

Smith’s record as Missouri’s starting quarterback barely broke the .500 mark — just 25-23 — but his influence is still measured in the players and victories that came after his time.

“His role,” Pinkel said, “was to help us learn how to win. … He helped us learn how to win again consistently.”Read More ...

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