Larry Brown Sports

There are two types of people who defend Joe Paterno. There is the kind of person who could be shown a video of Paterno cheering on Jerry Sandusky as the defensive coordinator abused a child and still support the head coach because of how many games he won at Penn State. Then there are the people who choose not to become informed about the case because they don’t want their image of the coach to be shattered. In either case, the reason for denial is the same: Joe Paterno can’t be bad because of how much he won, and how many young men he supposedly taught to win the “right way.”

Sadly, Gary Pinkel falls into the second group of people.

The Missouri coach embarrassed himself at SEC Media Day on Tuesday with the following defense of Joe Paterno:

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Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel was suspended a week by the school and he will be prevented from collecting a bowl bonus after he pleaded guilty to a DUI charge.

Pinkel was driving about 30 mph on the highway Wednesday night, leading to him being pulled over. He failed to signal on a lane change, made a wide turn, and almost hit a curb before being pulled over. He first denied that he was drinking but later admitted to having two jumbo sized glasses of wine.

That was quite apparent in his DUI stop video. If you watch the video, you’ll see that Pinkel struggled to recite the alphabet.

“When asked to recite the alphabet starting with the letter “E”, Pinkel said “E-F-G-H-R,” according to the report. Pinkel, then starting with the letter “A”, said “A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-R.”

He was unable to count backwards from 72, and he said he wouldn’t have been able to do that sober anyway.

Pinkel will receive two years of probation but he won’t have to go to jail nor pay a fine. He’s getting off relatively easy in my opinion. The only positive about Pinkel’s DUI stop is that at least he wasn’t driving the wrong direction.

H/T Nick Wright