To say things haven’t gone according to plan for the Missouri Tigers this season would be a massive understatement.

At 1-3 and fresh off of three-straight embarrassing home losses, the Tigers are licking their wounds as they try to fight their way back to respectability.

With a bye this weekend ahead of a tough road game against Kentucky, coach Barry Odom said on Wednesday (via STLToday.com) that it’s the perfect time for the Tigers to have some time off:

“This is about the perfect time for us to have a bye week,” he said. “We have some guys who have been injured the last few weeks and get a chance to get a full roster back for our game at Kentucky. Also for us self-evaluation. We’ll spend a lot of extra time on that and make some changes on different ways we’re playing, different schemes. We’ve had a productive week so far. I’m looking forward to two more really good practices and getting a jump on our next opponent. We’ll do some good-on-good cross-work and look forward to getting back into game week.”

An extra week may not be enough to fix all of the Tigers’ problems (on both sides of the ball), but if Odom wants to keep his job beyond this season, he’ll need his team to show some improvement.

Coming off the bye, the Tigers have what should be three games in four weeks they can at least compete in — at Kentucky, home vs. Idaho and at UConn. There’s also a game at Georgia in there, but not many will expect Mizzou to compete in that contest.

Will the bye week actually help? Only time will tell.