MU’s Barry Odom wishes Maty Mauk well, elaborates on plans for satellite camps

Missouri coach Barry Odom didn’t have any conversation with first-year Eastern Kentucky coach Mark Elder about Maty Mauk before Mauk signed a grant-in-aid agreement with the Colonels last week.

“When someone decides to leave, everything goes through the compliance office,” Odom said. “Once they decide to leave, schools might start to contact us, but all that goes through compliance.”

Mauk was suspended twice by Missouri last season — in late September and again in early November — for violating team rules. He missed the Tigers’ final eight games.

During three seasons as a full- or part-time starter, Mauk compiled a 17-5 record. He has one remaining year of eligibility.

Mauk can play immediately for Eastern Kentucky as a graduate-student transfer after earning a bachelor’s degree from Missouri this spring.

Odom said he wishes all former Mizzou players nothing but best and hopes his program and the university provide “them an opportunity to be successful.”

In Mauk’s case, “I want him to be able to go and have a great experience his last year and play really well and be successful,” Odom said.

Mauk’s first suspension was for a failed drug test, and the second came after he got into a verbal altercation at a Columbia bar only hours after apologizing to his teammates during a team meeting following his initial reinstatement.

After Odom was hired was early December, Mauk was reinstated again, but he was dismissed from the team in late January after a video surfaced on social media in which he appears to snort a white substance off a coffee table.

Mauk was immediately suspended for a third time when the video — which his father, Mike, said was several years old — came to light and Odom laid out expectations for his conduct moving forward.

Several days later, Odom dismissed Mauk for failing “to live up to those expectations by violating team rules in recent weeks,” according to a statement from Mizzou athletics.

About satellite camps ...

Throughout his first spring as the Tigers’ head coach, Odom has been tethered to campus by NCAA rules, but he’s eager to hit the road next month with appearances at a few satellite camps.

Mizzou has a camp scheduled for June 5 at Kirkwood High in suburban St. Louis and another June 7 at Park Hill High.

Defensive end Chester Graves, a Rivals four-star prospect and the recruiting service’s top 2017 prospect in Missouri (No. 9 at his position and No. 202 overall), happens to play for the Trojans.

Graves also has offers from Kansas State, Kansas, Ohio State, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Nebraska and Wisconsin, among others.

Odom said the Tigers’ coaching staff also will participate in several camps across Texas — including stops in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio — as well as in Atlanta and Chicago.

PowerMizzou.com also reported that the Tigers are set to appear in two more Texas camps — in Tyler and Benton — as well as one in Birmingham, Ala.

“We’re stepping into a little bit of the unknown going outside our campus to do them,” Odom said. “We’ll see how it goes this for cycle. Absolutely, it looks like we’ll have great numbers at all of them with the number of pre-registered guys.”

The end of the satellite camp ban for Southeastern Conference schools comes at a good time for Odom, who is trying to build his reputation in key recruiting areas.

“I’m looking forward to it as a head coach and being on the road, since we don’t have that luxury in the spring evaluation,” Odom said. “We’re going to use this opportunity, and it will be a great benefit for us.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 5:21 PM with the headline "MU’s Barry Odom wishes Maty Mauk well, elaborates on plans for satellite camps."