Ten players on Missouri’s football roster arrived on campus in 2014 when the program was on the heels of a 12-win season, a Southeastern Conference East Division championship and a victory in the Cotton Bowl. As freshmen they mostly watched and learned as the Tigers repeated as East champs and won 10 games, including the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Day.
For the rookies on campus, it would have been easy to expect that kind of success every year.
“It’s easy to have that mindset, that this is the expectation,” said offensive guard Kevin Pendleton, a third-year starter and one of the team’s 10 fifth-year seniors from that 2014 freshman class.