Mizzou focuses on playing for seniors, pride with bowl opportunity gone

Missouri coach Barry Odom is still having fun most afternoons.

The Tigers’ 2016 season — the first under Odom, who was hired Dec. 3 as Gary Pinkel’s replacement — hasn’t gone the way he’d dreamed.

Mizzou, 2-7, is riding a five-game skid into a 2:30 p.m. kickoff Saturday against Vanderbilt at Memorial Stadium.

The Tigers are the only SEC team without a conference win, and they have lost 11 straight games in conference dating back to last season — one shy of a dubious program record.

Still, Odom hasn’t lost his positive energy or enthusiasm.

“The funnest part of the day is every afternoon when you get to be around your kids in the locker room and get out on the field from 2:30 to 5:30 (for practice),” Odom said. “ … That’s the most enjoyable part and will never change.”

There’s plenty of other stuff he’d love to change, including Missouri’s shocking ineptitude on defense and lack of consistency on defense, but more than anything he’d love to give the team’s seniors one more game.

That ship sailed when the Tigers lost 31-21 last Saturday at South Carolina, eliminating Odom’s squad from bowl contention.

“When things don’t go exactly the way you want them to go your final year, I can relate, and it drives me every day to do everything I can,” Odom said.

This season’s senior class, as Odom’s first in the role of head coach at his alma mater, is important to him personally and professionally. He feels immense pressure to create a few more positive memories for those players before their college football careers end.

“I want nothing more than to be able to provide them an opportunity to celebrate in the locker room after Saturday’s game,” Odom said.

That’s also become about the only goal and motivation for Mizzou’s players, too — “sending the seniors off the right way,” sophomore linebacker Brandon Lee said.

“We wanted to send them off with a bowl game, but, as a young guy like myself, the only way to pay respect to them now is to go out and give it my all the next three weeks,” Lee said. “We can’t get them to a bowl game, and that’s unfortunate, but the least that we can do is play as hard as we can these last three games that we’ve got with them.”

It’s not much, but it’s something and it’s appreciated by seniors such as defensive tackle Rickey Hatley and cornerback John Gibson.

“We’re trying to make the most of these last few games,” Hatley said. “ … It’s very hard, knowing that our bowl chances are gone after last Saturday, but at least we could go out with some wins and feel some kind of success before the season is over.”

It’s not strictly a selfish motivation for the seniors either.

“I believe we will finish strong,” Gibson said. “I haven’t really seen signs of people giving up on the team, so I have no reason to say people are quitting. We’re ready to set the tone for next year and leave a legacy for the seniors.”

After all, the seniors want nothing more than to see the Tigers flourish again. If it can’t be on their watch, as back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since Pinkel’s first two years in 2001-02 already are assured, let it be those they leave behind.

“The last three games are big for the young people,” Hatley said. “The seniors are going to be gone, but we can go out winning and give them motivation to go into the offseason and spring ball, set them up for next season.”

This story was originally published November 7, 2016 at 9:34 PM with the headline "Mizzou focuses on playing for seniors, pride with bowl opportunity gone."