Missouri Football: The Rundown on Barry Odom
The SEC East has welcomed three new head football coaches since the 2015 season ended; Missouri football went with defensive coordinator Barry Odom.
Steve Spurrier, Mark Richt and Gary Pinkel are all out of the SEC East. Many would have ranked these three as the top three coaches in the SEC East before they all left rather unceremoniously.
Steve Spurrier resigned due to a variety of reasons, but mostly because his Gamecocks stunk.
Mark Richt was fired/resigned/mutually parted ways with Georgia after 15 years and his replacement has an incredible legacy to live up to.
Gary Pinkel had a terribly disappointing season in 2015 and resigned due to health concerns.
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Southbound and Down will provide you with the rundown on all three and afterwards tell you we’d pick to be taking over as the face of our program. It’s tough to pick, as only one (Will Muschamp) has previous head coach experience in the SEC. We’ll get things kicked off with new Missouri football coach Barry Odom.
Missouri football will have a new figure roaming the sidelines this fall. After years of success and division championships (both in the Big 12 and SEC) under Gary Pinkel, Missouri football fans will need to get acclimated to a new face of their program. What will make the transition easier, though, is that Missouri football fans are already used to the face and figure of Barry Odom.
Barry Odom is very familiar with Missouri football and the same is true in reverse. Odom was a Missouri football player from 1996-99. He followed that with 3 years of high school coaching, two of which came in Missouri. He then returned to Missouri in more of an administrative/coaching role for 6 years before becoming a position coach with Missouri in 2009.
From 2009-2011, Barry Odom served as the safeties coach for the Tigers. He parlayed that sting into a successful 3 season stint as defensive coordinator of the Tigers (of Memphis). After working his way into a hot prospect, he returned home and spent one season as the defensive coordinator/linebackers coach at Missouri.
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He took the Missouri defense and turned them into the 6th ranked defense nationally according to CBSsports.com. The man can obviously coach a defense and should be able to recruit well with his previous experience as a player and high school coach. We’ll all be anxiously awaiting the results to see if he can match what Gary Pinkel accomplished.
*All stats and records taken from mutigers.com unless otherwise noted*