Barry Odom’s first season awakening echoes of dark days of MU football

When then-defensive coordinator Barry Odom was named to succeed Gary Pinkel as University of Missouri football coach less than a year ago, he was swarmed by a team that appeared ecstatic as it chanted his name.

The scene seemed promising.

At the very least, it suggested players wanted to play for Odom and trusted him to stabilize the program amid great flux: the abrupt retirement of its winningest football coach after an announcement he was fighting cancer — and in the wake of racial unrest on campus that had led to the threat of a player boycott.

Instead, even the honeymoon has gone hideously wrong for the Tigers, who are 2-6 after losing their 10th consecutive Southeastern Conference game on Saturday.

The 35-21 loss to Kentucky was before an intimate little gathering at Memorial Stadium, where the announced crowd of 50,234 reflected thousands of tickets sold but unused.

Maybe this will prove a blip, but right now the program is at the alarming point where it’s reminiscent of Woody Widenhofer’s wretched 1-10 first season in 1985 and Bob Stull’s hapless 2-9 debut in 1989.

That was all part of the death spiral MU descended into for most of two decades (with the exception of two Larry Smith-guided bowl appearances) before Pinkel revived it.

Flashbacks, anyone?

Sorry, but it at least momentarily has that vibe.

No one watching this mess on Saturday could feel faith in the immediate future of a team that has to doubt itself … and at least some of the staff now, too.

Even some ardent followers feel that way, from several long-time, thick-and-thin supporters to one of the most candid and insightful former players there is, T.J. Moe.

“It’s time to be honest with ourselves about Mizzou football. Start from scratch. Full rebuild. And it’s not happening over night,” he wrote on Twitter, later adding, “I still think Odom is the guy. I know a lot of y’all are jumping ship. He’ll get it done, but the climb looks like Mount Everest today.”

It remains to be seen whether he’ll get it done.

But the climb does look infinite.

On a day it was time to take a stand and make a statement after the humbling 51-45 homecoming loss to Middle Tennessee, MU tumbled behind 35-7 and surrendered 582 yards to the Wildcats.

Along the way, it had the familiar tackling lapses and other discipline issues (nine penalties for 65 yards) that have come to be this team’s identity more than anything else — after the program had been synonymous in the last decade either with high-octane passing offense or dominant defensive line play.

A somber Odom began his postgame news conference acknowledging there is a “long ways to go.”

Suddenly, he sounded very much like a man setting about on a rebuilding job instead of what had been generally perceived as a tweaking transition to add his own encore to Pinkel’s legacy.

Asked what he can count on with his team, Odom didn’t point to anything at all on the field.

“I know that tomorrow when we have them in here to lift, I know they’re going to show up and … they’re going to give me great effort,” he said.

Yikes.

As much as the honesty is appreciated, that’s not the most inspiring perspective.

But it speaks to the reality that in part has to be laid to MU under Pinkel failing to exploit its back-to-back SEC divisional titles in 2013 and 2014 with a new tier of recruiting … and in part simply is on Odom.

(Some want to blame the protests last fall for a disruption in recruiting, but it’s an illogical point when it comes to this team … unless you expected the lineup to be dominated by true freshmen.)

Too often this looks like a sloppily coached team, symbolized by 22 penalties in the last two games, seemingly random substitution patterns, imprecise technique at several positions and otherwise unfocused play.

When Odom was asked if he questioned his team’s effort, he deftly steered his answer to tackling but in a sense affirmed the point.

A certain percentage of the poor tackling, he said, is fundamental, adding that a certain percentage also is about “effort and toughness and, really, desire.”

Speaking of desire, this is merely Odom’s first season as a head coach, and those who know him well believe in his will and resourcefulness and intelligence.

Emphasis on “those who know him well,” because Odom in many ways is an unknown commodity as a first-time head coach at 39.

He made it a point to limit media access in the spring and plays a lot close to the vest, including all that went into revamping the aggressive defensive scheme he coordinated a year ago to the read-and-react one that has proved porous.

But say this for Odom, at long last, he spent the last week retooling the defense largely back to what he’d run a year ago.

While careful to call it a “collective effort” and not claiming the title, Odom also spent the week essentially taking the helm of defensive coordinator from DeMontie Cross, who has gotten the brunt of blame for the defensive woes.

Trouble is, on Saturday the move only served to illuminate the fact that the problems go a lot deeper than what defensive scheme MU is running.

None of this means it’s inevitable the Tigers are about to plummet into a new era of futility.

After all, as the saying goes, the first pancake always has lumps.

But there’s no denying this: MU is in a rebuilding phase, not retooling or reloading.

And Odom’s future will pivot not on his ability to sustain Pinkel’s legacy but to create his own.

Like any MU follower, he’s “very discouraged” now.

But he never thought this would be easy, he said, and added, “I’m going to get (it) done. There’s not one question in my mind; there’s not anything I’ve ever set out for that I haven’t done.”

If not, well, history shows this might be a while.

This story was originally published October 29, 2016 at 7:09 PM with the headline "Barry Odom’s first season awakening echoes of dark days of MU football."