The Missouri Tigers started the year 1-5 and looked to be heading toward one of their worst seasons in program history.

However, since then, the team has rattled off five-straight wins and now have assured themselves a bowl berth, which wouldn’t have been fathomable a couple of months ago.

Did the early adversity help the Tigers? Perhaps it did, but coach Barry Odom said on Monday that he wouldn’t recommend starting 1-5 as a good way to reach a team’s potential:

Odom added that the team never lost confidence earlier this year, even as the losses were piling up. He said the Tigers knew they were doing the right things in practice, but it just wasn’t showing up in games yet:

https://twitter.com/MizzouFootball/status/932664612423720960

The Tigers can take down Arkansas on Friday to get to seven wins, which would likely mean a better bowl game for Odom’s squad.

At the beginning of the year, a bowl berth was the goal, and now the team has reached it with one more regular-season game left to play.