Mizzou rebuild may have no end in sight
The fire and brimstone speech occurred after last Saturday night’s 51-14 home loss to Auburn.
The lone open date and potential respite of a spiraling season occurs this week.
Missouri’s second football season under coach Barry Odom is not going to plan, with his Tigers standing 1-3 overall and 0-3 against Bowl Subdivision programs. The 37-point loss to Auburn followed a 32-point loss to Purdue, which followed an 18-point loss to South Carolina, and all three of those games were at friendly Faurot Field.
Suddenly, simply matching last season’s 4-8 record seems like a stretch for what looks like the worst Southeastern Conference program for a second straight year.
“Let’s talk real life and where we’re at, all right?” Odom said at the beginning of an emotional three-minute opening statement in a news conference after last week’s loss. “I want to get one thing real straight: I’m going to win here, and that’s going to happen. We will win. This is a turnaround.
“Any way you want to slice it or dice it or want to look at it, this is a turnaround process, and unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I’m built for this because I’ve been in a whole heck of a lot of them in my entire life.”
Odom proceeded to list the successful rebuilding projects he has been a part of — as a Mizzou player in the late 1990s under Larry Smith, as a Mizzou defensive assistant under Gary Pinkel and as a Memphis defensive coordinator under Justin Fuente.
This rebuild, however, is taking place amid financial difficulties at the university as a result
of backlash from a 2015 string of incidents that involved the football team.
In the fall of 2014 Missouri had its largest student body, largest freshman class and largest minority enrollment, and the Tigers enjoyed a second consecutive Eastern Division football title in just their third season in the SEC. By the 2015 season, however, there were widespread reports of racial animosity at the school, and a wealthy black graduate student, Jonathan Butler, went on a hunger strike that would not end unless certain demands were met, including a change in the administration.
Missouri football players offered their support of Butler by announcing they would boycott an appearance at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium to play Brigham Young in their 10th game of the season. Pinkel supported his players, and their movement helped lead to the
resignations of university system president Timothy Wolfe and campus chancellor Bowen Loftin.
Odom, who was in his only year as Missouri’s defensive coordinator, refers to 2015 as “a tough year that built me for who I am today.”
Missouri not only played BYU but defeated the Cougars 20-16 in Kansas City to improve to 5-5 and get in position for a third straight bowl trip, but the Tigers lost to Tennessee and Arkansas to close a 5-7 disappointment. Pinkel stepped down after the 2015 season due to health reasons, but the damage to the school was just beginning.
Enrollment has since plummeted by 2,000 at Mizzou, with prospective students and their families either viewing the university as having race issues or for being out of control, given that students and student-athletes essentially were able to terminate their chancellor. The New York Times reported this past summer that Missouri was having to close seven dormitories and lay off more than 400 employees due to the dwindling student body.
Junior quarterback Drew Lock reminded reporters of his threeyear experience at the school when asked Saturday night about this season’s struggles.
“If you start out 1-3, you’re going to be a little upset,” Lock said. “As far as pushing through adversity, a lot of guys on the team have been through a lot. I know since I’ve been here that it hasn’t been the easiest walk of life. You’ve just got to keep pushing and keep plugging.”
Since their emotional triumph over BYU, the Tigers are just 5-13, including a 2-10 mark in SEC play. The football program is already challenged enough by being regarded as an “outpost” by many in a division that has been headed historically by Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
Missouri had the league’s worst defense last season and remains last this season, with Odom having already fired coordinator DeMontie Cross earlier this month.
“This is when the going gets tough,” Odom said. “You build them together. You fight together, and you go find a way to get it done. This is a turnaround process that’s not going to be easy, and our team knows that. I’ve got a guy who’s the third-team left tackle from Rock Bridge High School who’s got a Twitter account with 12 followers, and he wants to put out how terrible we are. That’s the way this society is.
“I’m disappointed, I’m frustrated — all of the above — but I’m right where I want to be.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.