Relax dudes, blonde-boy Yost has Mizzou under control

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Dave Yost doesn't surf. Much.

"I'm average at it, at best," the Missouri assistant said.

With a surfer haircut, Yost stands out to potential recruits. (Provided to CBSSports.com)

That's the first question a guy gets when he looks like Spicoli from Fast Times At Ridgemont High.

The second goes to the star quarterback: What did he think having a sandy-blonde beach bum as his position coach?

"This," Chase Daniel thought, "is going to be a great four or five years. If my coach can have a soul patch and mop on his head that's great. He's real down to earth, he's funny."

He is also the most unlikely quarterbacks coach you're likely to see for this unlikeliest of national contenders. Yost never played quarterback, barely played college football at Kent State and got his big break when he became a defensive assistant under Gary Pinkel at Toledo 11 years ago. For the last seven years Yost has worked in relative anonymity for a middle of the pack Big 12 North team. Now people want to know what this 37-year-old from Ohio, working in mid-Missouri, is doing tutoring a Heisman candidate.

"It's unique," said Yost, his eyes barely poking out from beneath that "mop." "I think it helps guys remember me: 'The guy with the long, blond hair.' If a bunch of coaches lined up in a line, I'd stand out. I'd be picked out of a lineup real fast."

Maybe that's why the quarterbacks coach is also Missouri's recruiting coordinator as the Tigers play for a spot in the BCS title game on Saturday. It can't hurt to look like the guys you're recruiting.

"People will say, 'You have the surfer haircut.' It stands out," Yost said. "I had short hair until I came to Missouri. I decided I wanted to let it grow out. I also had a perm for a short time just because I wanted curls. My wife didn't like that."

OK, now it's getting weird. A man perm? Maybe that's the way low-key head coach Gary Pinkel has always wanted it. Buttoned down on the outside, crazy on the inside. To develop the nation's best offense you need a little crazy.

Pinkel has put 6,800 miles since April on his Harley that he sometimes rides two hours to St. Louis for functions. Goateed offensive coordinator Dave Christensen had the courage to scrap the entire offense a few years ago when he saw this spread thing on the horizon.

Because of that, basically Daniel is here. Pinkel admits that he wouldn't have landed his prize quarterback had not this offense been here to fit him like Under Armour. The classic gunslinger then bonded with a punk rocker as a position coach.

A position coach who even married a player's sister. One day Yost asked kicker Adam Crossett about his sister Carrie, a former Mizzou soccer player.

"Why don't you ask her?" Adam said.

"Why don't you give me her number," Yost shot back.

A year later they were married.

A position coach who was a nothing in 1995 when Pinkel hired him away from Tiffin (Ohio) University. As Toledo assistant head coach Mike Dunbar was headed out the door to Northern Iowa, he recommended that Pinkel interview Yost. If not, Dunbar was taking him to Northern Iowa.

"I wanted to train him to coach quarterbacks," Pinkel said. "He was a bright guy, he was younger and his hair wasn't as long ... What I taught him he's taken to a whole different level."

Best offense? The subject is not up for debate at this point. Try going into a game knowing you're going to score 30 points. Actually it's 31. Missouri is the only offense in the country to put up at least that many points in every game.

The all-passing label is misleading. Sure, Missouri has the No. 5 passing offense. But tailback Tony Temple ran for 1,000 yards last season. Eleven players gained yards in Saturday's win over Kansas. Tight end Martin Rucker is a finalist for the Mackey Award (best tight end). Daniel is Missouri's first legitimate Heisman candidate in almost 50 years. During practice for the Jayhawks, he missed connections on one pass all week.

"In the team period," Daniel clarified, which means he completed something like 59 out of 60. "It was the best week of throwing and catching the ball that we had in practice in all year long."

By now you know that results of those practices led to a win over No. 2 Kansas and shot the Tigers up to No. 1 in both the AP poll and BCS standings. Players would be tap-dancing in the lobby of the Mizzou Athletics Training Complex if it wasn't for Saturday's Big 12 championship game against Oklahoma.

Yeah, there's that small issue. Win that and the Tigers, who haven't played in a major bowl in 38 years, will be playing for it all in New Orleans.

"People come in who cover our games for telecasts, they just marvel at the things we do," Pinkel said. "We are exciting to watch. There's no question about it. You want to be exciting, you want to score a lot of points and you want to win. If you're exciting and you're getting beat, who cares?"

Don't think it's all passing, RB Tony Temple has contributed as well. (US Presswire)

The last time there was this much upheaval at this place was in 1941 when legendary coach Don Faurot invented the Split T and turned it loose on the football world.

Now it's Christensen's turn. The OC wasn't the BMOC in his own house until arriving here with Pinkel. Christensen's wife Susie made more money than her husband until then as a highly successful car dealership finance manager. After the 2004 season, though, Christensen had his share of critics. Missouri's pro-style set had bogged down.

"Put it this way," said the coach, still bitter from the e-mail and talk show snakes, "no one has ever showed up at the office to complain."

Christensen had the courage to talk Pinkel into changing the whole offensive system. He had an inkling the spread offense was the next big thing. Pinkel admits he would have never landed Daniel out of Texas had the new offense not fit the quarterback perfectly.

"It was a completely new," Christensen said. "We hadn't done anything like we're doing now. We started from scratch. We wouldn't have done it if we didn't believe we couldn't be successful.

"We had to make a change philosophically, do something to give us an edge week in and week out against top teams."

The staff studied Urban Meyer, Gregg Brandon (a former Meyer assistant) at Bowling Green, West Virginia and Clemson, among others.

"We just had to decide what we wanted to be," Pinkel said.

What they have become is cutting edge, running the spread at a rapid pace that confused even the mighty Sooners in Missouri's only loss. The Tigers led 24-23 in the fourth quarter before turnovers (and Oklahoma, to be fair) did them in. What came out of that game was a sense of being that has evolved into a swagger. Even while losing, the Tigers weren't intimidated that night.

A big offensive line keeps defenses off the 5-foot-10 (to be charitable) Daniel. In the six games since Oklahoma he has thrown 17 touchdowns and only three interceptions, none in the last three games.

"The last six games he threw it where it couldn't be intercepted ...," Yost said. "It's like a 3-point shooter. Some guys can shoot threes, some guys learn to get better chances."

The Kansas game might have been Daniel's greatest moment -- 40 of 49 for 361 yards and three touchdowns. Of the nine incompletions, at least two were intentional throwaways to avoid the rush.

"I don't think anybody in the country is doing exactly the same type of things that we're doing," Pinkel said.

When it was over Daniel and Yost embraced on the floor of Arrowhead Stadium, shouting sweet nothings in each other's ear. They were something more profound than the usual needles they throw at each other.

"We're both kind of smart alecks a little bit," Yost said. "I think I'm probably more of a smart aleck than he is. I can kid him a little bit but we kind of know where the line is."

As of now it's a line that runs from here straight to New Orleans.

For the rest of the national notes read Dennis Dodd's blog Dodds and Ends .