Barry Odom knows defense but here’s how he’s thrived at recruiting QBs to Mizzou

Kelly Bryant boarded the plane with his mind made up.

He would not sign with the Mizzou Tigers for his final season of college football.

The Clemson transfer and South Carolina native had no interest in playing quarterback so far from home. But by the time Bryant sat down for his flight home from Missouri last October, a different idea swirled in his head.

“Maybe this is the place I can finish my last year at,” Bryan thought as the plane soared and a potential shift in power awaited the Southeastern Conference.

After going 16-2 at Clemson and then losing his starting job to freshman phenom Trevor Lawrence, Bryant was college football’s biggest free agent. Arkansas, led by former Clemson offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Chad Morris, wanted him. So did Auburn.

Yet on his visit to Columbia, Bryant grew to like Missouri, even with a defensive coach leading the program. In his first four years as head coach, Barry Odom has proven he can recruit heralded quarterbacks.

When he took the Missouri job in December 2015, Odom inherited first-year starter Drew Lock, but he still had to sell Lock on his vision for the program before he could reshape the roster. Shortly after securing Bryant’s commitment, Odom landed TCU transfer Shawn Robinson, who was considered one of the nation’s top quarterbacks coming out of high school.

To this point, Odom’s tenure is partially defined by identifying and connecting with high-level quarterbacks who possess a similar no-nonsense demeanor.

Sitting in his office in early August, with a one-year postseason ban hanging over his program, Odom said his definition of success for Bryant won’t change regardless of if their one season together ends in a bowl game.

“(I hope) that he was the best quarterback that he could be, and that I provided every resource necessary for it to happen,” Odom said. “Because it means I gave him the chance to grow.”

Developing a bond

Upon becoming Missouri’s coach, securing a one-on-one sitdown with Lock became Odom’s top priority. More important than first meetings with boosters, administrators and candidates for his coaching staff.

The 2015 season was Odom’s first with the program in four years, after serving as Memphis’ defensive coordinator from 2012-14. Odom worked in Memphis during Lock’s recruiting process and had always focused on the other side of the ball in his career.

So when they met in Odom’s office at the Missouri Athletic Training Center, Odom mainly asked Lock about his well-being.

Thrust into the starting job in 2014, Lock’s freshman year had been a rollercoaster, with Gary Pinkel’s sudden retirement following a national attention-grabbing boycott and Odom’s promotion serving as the final swerve.

“I wanted to get a feel for where he was,” Odom told The Star. “The things he went through his freshman year were pretty difficult — understanding the offense to getting the mess beat out of him a few games. It was a difficult year for him personally.

“I needed him, and he needed me.”

Odom reassured Lock that he could win in college and that his freshman season wouldn’t define him. The coach told him he planned to build his first few teams around Lock, would use his arm strength and promised to hire an offensive coordinator who had won at a high level in college. Odom would eventually pick Josh Heupel, a former Heisman finalist who quarterbacked Oklahoma to the 2001 national championship.

When the meeting ended, Odom felt confident that Lock, a Missouri legacy, was on the same page. Odom wouldn’t have to worry about Lock transferring and the two grew close during their final three years.

After MU’s loss in the Liberty Bowl to Oklahoma State last December, Lock, sitting beside his coach in the postgame news conference, referenced Odom as part of his goodbye to the Tigers’ fanbase.

“We have a really good team,” Lock said. “It’s going to keep getting better because of this man sitting here next to me.”

Replacing Drew Lock

When Odom realized in 2018 that Missouri’s heir to Lock might not be on the roster, he considered adding a graduate transfer quarterback.

After appearing in the first four games of the season, Bryant entered the market at the end of September. He utilized the NCAA’s new redshirt rule, preserving his final season of eligibility.

Odom, like many power conference coaches, started recruiting Bryant. Analysts were skeptical of Missouri’s chances, but Bryant and Odom clicked.

“I told him when I was getting recruited, I didn’t want to be treated like a high-schooler,” Bryant told The Star. “I’ve been through all that. All the highlight videos, I could see that at home. I wanted to see how the players interact with the coaches and vice versa.”

Like Bryant, Odom is interested in the substance of recruiting. He refuses to talk to prospects about what the program will look like in five years and other hypotheticals. Not when a coach can get fired at any time. Instead, he prefers to sell only what he has — no bowl wins but the most victories of any Missouri coach in his first three years, plus a new football-specific facility.

“If you talk about things that are five years down the road, you don’t know that,” Odom said. “Talk about the process, about how you’re trying to get there (now) and being open and honest. Have the opportunity going into year four to have things to back that up.

“No one wants to sit there and hear all the things you think they want to hear. It gets old really quick.”

Bryant liked enough of Odom’s and offensive coordinator Derek Dooley’s pitch to visit MU on Oct. 27 for its game against Kentucky, a prime opportunity for Odom to secure a big win against a ranked team and show he had the program on the right track.

Bryant had previously visited Arkansas and Auburn. Ramon Robinson, his longtime personal quarterbacks coach, said some of Bryant’s other suitors talked too much about his running ability. They didn’t focus enough on his passing and how his entire skill set could translate to the NFL.

In a meeting with Odom and Dooley, Odom bluntly told Bryant about his intentions for him.

“We’re not bringing you here to run the ball,” Odom said to Bryant. “We’re bringing you here to throw the ball and run the team.”

Dooley told Bryant about his time with the Dallas Cowboys and how he could grow in the MU offense, just like Lock. Unlike Lawrence or Deshaun Watson, his predecessor at Clemson, Bryant is not a surefire NFL prospect. But Dooley’s offense uses NFL vernacular and would give Bryant the chance to show off his arm.

Following a questionable pass interference call, Missouri lost to Kentucky on a last-second play. It was perhaps the hardest result for Odom to stomach all season, but after the game, Missouri had a presentation planned for Bryant on the new south end zone complex.

Bryant told Missouri to cancel it. He wanted to watch film, help dissect the loss and be around the players. Odom said he knew then that Bryant would fit in at MU.

“He wasn’t really interested in watching highlight videos of the new facility or him,” Odom said. “He was more interested in the people inside the building.”

Robinson said some of Bryant’s other suitors spent a lot of time educating Bryant on the history of their respective programs and how he could be part of a larger legacy. Odom preferred to talk football.

In Odom’s eyes, that history lessons were mostly pointless. What does MU’s 1995 season have to do with its 2019 season? Time spent talking about that could be used to discuss where Bryant fits in the offense and current team culture.

“They did not oversell the program,” said Robinson, Bryant’s private coach. “They stayed the course.”

Stockpiling the position

Bryant committed to Missouri in December, giving the program the national spotlight for a few days and turning the head of another transfer quarterback.

Shawn Robinson decided to transfer from TCU after the 2018 season, when he was replaced by backup Mike Collins after injuring his shoulder. Robinson wasn’t initially considering MU but decided to take a visit after seeing Bryant’s commitment.

Missouri recruited Robinson out of high school, but he said he has no recollection of it, given the number of suitors he had. This time was different. When he visited in December, Odom immediately grew on Robinson.

Odom didn’t mince words during Robinson’s recruitment. He told him Bryant would be the starter in 2019, even if Robinson received immediate eligibility through a waiver. Missouri also had a verbal commitment from Connor Bazelak, now a freshman on the team, and neither Dooley nor Odom promised Robinson he’d be MU’s starter in 2020. He’d have to win the job over Bazelak and redshirt sophomore Taylor Powell.

“From the get-go, he was just a really genuine, straight-up guy,” Robinson said. “I really liked everything that he had in-store and everything that he had planned for me.”

Robinson committed shortly thereafter and is set to be eligible in 2020, as the NCAA denied his waiver to play immediately.

Odom’s pitch aged well. Robinson said he could point out everything Odom recruited him with by walking around on campus or at a MU practice. There’s the south end zone facility, which opened on Aug. 1. There’s Missouri’s track record for graduating players. There’s a deep receiving corps, which appears set to be one of the program’s strengths for years to come.

“What you see is what you get with him,” Robinson said of Odom. “Everything that he’s preaching and talking about, you can literally see.”

Missouri should find out in the coming weeks whether the NCAA will lift the bowl ban the Tigers received because of an academic fraud case. Regardless, Odom said the result doesn’t change what the season holds for MU or for Bryant, as both will have a lot to prove. Getting Bryant was big for Missouri, but it means nothing if the Tigers don’t capitalize on his final season. And Bryant, no longer part of a Clemson team of five-star recruits, must show he deserved to be college football’s most-coveted free agent.

During his time at Mizzou, Lock often talked about getting Missouri back to national relevance, something the program came just short of last season. Bryant said that is now his mission. Not Bazelak’s. Not Robinson’s. Four year after Odom and Lock sat in the coach’s office to discuss life and MU’s hopeful return to prominence, Bryant intends to turn their hopes into reality.

“Whenever I’m done playing,” Bryant said, “I just want to say Mizzou is back.”