Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel won his second consecutive SEC East title Friday night with a 21-14 victory over the Arkansas Razorbacks. Here’s what he had to say about the Tigers’ sixth straight win.

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Gary Pinkel, Missouri

Opening statement

“First of all, we played a really good football team. Bret [Bielema is] doing a great job building that program, so we’ll be playing a long time against those guys. … very fortunate win for us. I think this is kind of indicative of this football team that has this makeup of battling. When things get tough, they get remarkably competitive. It’s very unique. I think we kind of became that way as the season went and found out that we’re going to have to win games. Quite frankly, in [the SEC] you’re going to have to do this a lot. You watch Saturday games all the time in the SEC and a lot of them come down to the fourth quarter. A lot of plays by a lot of players. I’m certainly excited for our seniors that we could finish this way. Very appreciative of our fan base and some people told me at the beginning of the week that we weren’t going to have as many people at [the game]. I didn’t say anything but I just couldn’t understand to think that we were going to play for the SEC East Championship again and we weren’t going to have this thing full. But man, our fans were rocking. Just very appreciative of them being Missouri Tiger fans and raising their level, too. Just like we wanted to raise our level, our fans raised their level in what they are and what their responsibility is to our football team. I feel very fortunate and blessed and I got a lot of good people around me and I’m just very thankful.

On playing tough games in the SEC

“Nothing’s been easy about this, but that reflects the league. You know when you play in this league … don’t be discouraged or upset because it takes so long in to get the fourth quarter. Everything is a fourth quarter game because that’s the way the league is. You got to embrace it and battle. I think we’ve done a great job of that and very happy for everybody.”

On his team’s gutsy win

“Really did. They didn’t score a point against our defense in the second half. How about that? That’s pretty good, especially against that team. And then having the offense making the plays they needed to make. That starts with Maty [Mauk] throwing the ball and starting to run and the protection and just working together as a group. We were very fortunate to get that turnover at hte very end of the game. I’m just real proud of my team. I always say that, but you got quite a makeup of people on this football team to have this thing work like this. And we’re very fortunate that we do.

On the big plays from his wide receivers

“Great catches. Jimmie Hunt struggled early and then made a big, big play, that really kind of momentum-wise changed the whole half for us. We really didn’t have a big momentum play that I recall, so once that happen a lot of things started happening.”

On the reviewed fumble in fourth quarter

“I didn’t think we were going to get the call. Dan Hopkins, director of football operations, comes up and says ‘Coach, I see it. Let them review it.’ They said they did and they weren’t going to do it and then all of the sudden they buzzed it and they looked at it. It was great. We had a chance earlier to get out of the drive. We had a personal foul and it kept us on the field, so it was great that they were on top of that enough to make sure the right things happened and we got the football.”