Mizzou’s Shane Ray sweeps SEC defensive player of year awards; Gary Pinkel is coach of year

Missouri picked up three end-of-the-year conference football awards Wednesday in voting by the SEC coaches.

Junior defensive end Shane Ray was chosen SEC defensive player of the year, senior running back/return specialist Marcus Murphy won special teams player of the year and Gary Pinkel was honored as coach of the year.

Pinkel led the Tigers, 10-3, to a 7-1 conference record, including a second consecutive SEC Eastern Division title and appearance in the league title game.

Per his MU contract, he receives a $50,000 bonus for the award and will receive $100,000 if he’s chosen as national coach of the year by the American Football Coaches Association or the Associated Press.

It is the second conference coach of the year award for Pinkel, who was the 2007 Big 12 coach of the year.

Pinkel is MU’s first two-time winner. Al Onofrio in 1972, Warren Powers in 1983 and Larry Smith in 1997 also won conference coach of the year awards with the Tigers.

Ray, a Kansas City native and Bishop Miege graduate, swept the SEC defensive player of the year awards after he won the AP honor Monday. In his first season as a starter, Ray led the SEC with a school-record 14 sacks and 21 tackles for loss.

He is the third Tiger to win conference defensive player of the year, joining Jeff Gaylord, who won the AP Big Eight honor in 1981, and Michael Sam, who won the SEC awards by the AP and coaches last year.

Murphy, a native of DeSoto, Texas, was a first-team All-SEC pick as an all-purpose player and return specialist by the coaches. He led the SEC with 1,714 all-purpose yards and finished second with 131.9 all-purpose yards per game.

No. 16 Missouri plays Minnesota, 8-4, on Jan. 1 in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla.

This story was originally published December 10, 2014 at 2:17 PM with the headline "Mizzou’s Shane Ray sweeps SEC defensive player of year awards; Gary Pinkel is coach of year."