BREAKING UPDATE: Missouri Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin says he will “transition” out of role. 

Protests, not pigskins, have dominated Missouri football talk the past three days.

It was no different during head coach Gary Pinkel’s weekly press conference on Monday.

Pinkel and Missouri athletic director Mack Rhoades met with the media on Monday afternoon. Dozens of questions were asked during the 45-minute press conference. Every single one of them was related to the on-campus protest and the team’s support of it.

RELATED: Missouri players release statement after strike

Last Monday, Missouri graduate student Jonathan Butler started a hunger strike to protest what he claimed was a growing amount of racism on campus. Butler claimed the university wasn’t doing enough to combat the racism, and called for university president Tim Wolfe to resign.

THE AFTERMATH:

Butler’s protest grabbed national headlines on Saturday night, when 32 members of the Missouri football team joined the protest and said they would not participate in any football-related activities until Butler’s hunger strike ended. Pinkel said the players were very concerned about Butler and the situation, and they expressed that concern to their coach.

“My players are real good leaders, and they wanted to go on campus and get involved,” Pinkel said.

The players and coaches met on Sunday morning, and the rest of the team decided to support their teammates. Pinkel said the team was united, not divided. The Tigers did not practice on Sunday.

“I became involved because I support my players,” Pinkel said. “I did the right thing, and I would do it again.”

“On Saturday and Sunday, it was not about football,” he added.

Butler’s hunger strike ended Monday, when Wolfe announced he would resign. “Obviously, we’ve got some problems. But the good news is we’re going to fix them,” Pinkel said.

“We’re not perfect. We have some issues … and we need to face these issues head on. We can be leaders in helping resolve those issues,” Rhoades said.

“We’re going to learn from this, and we’re going to make this a better place,” Pinkel added.

With Butler’s hunger strike and the protest now over, Pinkel says the team looks forward to getting back to football.

“The team’s excited about getting going again, and focusing on our game with BYU this week,” he said.

The Missouri players decided as a team that they would not talk to the media this week.

Missouri (4-5) will play BYU (7-2) on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. The game will be shown on the SEC Network.