Once this group of players threatened to boycott the next game, the president was gone. The University of Missouri -- and the conference they belong to -- would have gotten themselves involved in a huge financial/legal mess with the TV network (CBS, I think) that pays tens of millions of dollars to broadcast their games.
The more interesting angle of this story is that NCAA players all over the country can now see themselves staging a similar type of "strike" for any reason whatsoever -- and getting pretty much any results they want.
If Pinkel were a man about it, he should have started the second or third string for the game and benched the starters.
If even they were stupid enough to go along with this, he should have contacted the alumni and boosters, explained the situation to them, and forfeited the game.
The alumni would do something then to discipline the team.
college football players generate a ton of revenue for a NCAA Division I school
That is a total of 128 schools. Top 30 teams heading to the bowls are not going to strike. Only about 50 or so actually make money, most are money losers.