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Missouri Tigers’ Ray, Murphy, Pinkel Honored In SEC Awards

By Derek Franks

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The Missouri Tigers efforts that resulted in a wildly successful 2014 season have been rewarded with great honors.

Shane Ray (left) was a terror for offenses in 2014 and was easily the SEC’s best player. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

The very extinguishing SEC Awards were announced Wednesday, in which three big names from Mizzou’s football program were handed out.

Defensive end Shane Ray- MU’s unquestionable M.V.P. this year– was awarded with Defensive Player of the Year. Running back and kick return specialist Marcus Murphy is special teams player of the year.

And perhaps the biggest name announced was Tiger head coach Gary Pinkel, who was given SEC Coach of the Year, a huge honor considering the other names Pinkel must coach against (Saban, Richt, Spurrier, Miles, etc.)

In his 13th season as the MU head coach, Pinkel guided the Tigers to a second straight SEC East title and won 10 games in a year where most experts predicted a much less successful year considering the youth and inexperience of the players.

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    • Despite a tough loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game a week ago, the Tigers have a lot to celebrate about in 2014. Thanks to their success this year, they will play another quality bowl game, this time the Citrus Bowl on New Years day. The SEC rewarded Mizzou for that.

    The announcement comes one day after Ray and Murphy were both honored with first-team all-SEC by the Associated Press.

    Ray, who led the conference with 14 sacks and 21 tackles for a loss, swept the SEC Awards’ voting for player of the year. Murphy ran for an SEC best 1,714 all purpose yards and was the conference’s best kickoff and punt returner.

    Pinkel was forced to coach a team of inexperience players in 2014. He must be given credit for taking 3-star players and turning them into 4 and 5-star players and getting them to 10 wins.

    But he also must be rewarded for going to his program’s second consecutive conference championship game. The past two season’s have put Missouri on the map in the SEC and show that it officially belongs in college football’s most premier conference.

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