Former Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel was charged Friday in Camden County with a class B misdemeanor stemming from a July 7, 2025, arrest, after court documents showed he was the one who waved down the trooper who ended up arresting him.
The probable cause statement says the officer saw Pinkel flagging him down around 11:30 p.m. in the parking lot of a Big O Tires on Bagnell Dam Blvd. in Lake Ozark, where Pinkel was dealing with a blown tire on his car. The trooper reported that the back right tire on the SUV had blown and had been driven on the rim “for a significant distance based on the damage.”
Once the officer began asking questions, the scene shifted. The probable cause statement says there was a “strong odor of an intoxicating beverage emitting from (Pinkel’s) breath and person,” and that Pinkel’s speech was slurred and he was swaying as he talked.
Pinkel first told the trooper he had “just a very small drink” and had stopped drinking three hours before the tire blew. He later said he had “like two drinks” and that his last drink was two hours earlier.
The trooper then put him through multiple field sobriety tests, and the probable cause statement says Pinkel could not recite the alphabet starting with E and stopping at R, and also could not count backward from 78 to 62. The officer also noted “lack of smooth pursuit” when Pinkel was asked to follow the trooper’s finger with his eyes.
A preliminary breath test registered a blood alcohol concentration of 0.128%, above Missouri’s legal limit of 0.08%. Pinkel was arrested, taken to Camden County jail, and later released.
Pinkel is 74 and coached Missouri from 2001-15, leading the Tigers to multiple Big 12 North and SEC East division titles. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2022.
This was not his first DWI case. Pinkel previously pleaded guilty to a DWI in Boone County after a Nov. 16, 2011, arrest.
Court documents say Pinkel has been summoned to appear in Camden County on July 28, 2026, to plead to the charge.
In Other News...
One Auburn Staff Addition Could Loom Large At Tennessee
Auburns coaching staff gained a familiar face this offseason in Tim Banks, and his arrival has a little extra relevance with Tennessee coming up on the schedule. Banks is now handling safeties for the Tigers, but his background matters just as much as his title: he spent five seasons with Josh Heupel in Knoxville as Tennessees defensive coordinator, giving Auburn a coach who knows the Volunteers offensive tendencies from the inside.
That kind of familiarity does not guarantee anything on game day, but it can matter in a matchup like this, where small edges are often built in the meeting room before they show up on the field. Banks fit alongside defensive coordinator DJ Durkin could help Auburn sort through that preparation, and the Tigers also have a few other staff ties to Knoxville in the building as they get ready for the trip. [Read more 🡒]
SEC Buzz Builds As Alabama Shifts Recruiting Talk And Arch Stirs Debate
Archie Manning stepped into the conversation around his grandsons first season as Texas starting quarterback, pushing back on the way Arch Manning was judged in 2025. He said Arch was treated unfairly, argued that people had put too much on him before he ever took a snap, and pointed to the way the quarterback settled in and played through the back half of the year.
Meanwhile, Alabamas recruiting momentum picked up again with a commitment that gives the Crimson Tide another early piece in a class that had drawn some scrutiny. For Auburn fans, it is another reminder that the race on the trail never really slows down in this league, and Alabama is already trying to reset the conversation about where its 2027 class is headed. [Read more 🡒]
Auburn May Be Headed For A Bigger Year 1 Than Expected
Expectations are already climbing around Auburn in Alex Goleshs first season, and the early national projections suggest the Tigers could settle into a winning year right away. A CBS Sports forecast has Auburn at 7-5, but there is a growing sense that the roster work done through the transfer portal, along with the programs recruiting push, gives this team a better chance to outperform the cautious outside view.
A more optimistic read of the schedule points toward a stronger finish and even the possibility of a winning SEC record in year one, which would be a notable step for a staff still settling in. The real question now is whether Auburn can turn that offseason momentum into enough conference wins to make the higher-end projection feel less like a ceiling and more like the baseline. [Read more 🡒]