Barry Odom sits down to reflect on the state of his Missouri program during bye week
Following a rough start to the season, Missouri has rebounded nicely, winning three consecutive games including the team’s conference opener before reaching the first bye week of the season.
The Tigers now have two weeks to prepare for Troy before facing Ole Miss at home before hitting the road for consecutive road trips to Vanderbilt and Kentucky.
There’s an outstanding chance the Tigers are favored in each of those matchups, and if they take care of business over the next month, the Tigers will be 7-1 with two weeks to prepare for their trip to Athens.
Without a game to prepare for this weekend, Barry Odom recently sat down with the Mizzou Network to reflect on the state of his Missouri program following the first month of the season.
Check it out below:
ONE ON ONE: Barry Odom sits down with @BenArnetMU to discuss the state of his program as the Tigers take a (3-1) record into the bye week pic.twitter.com/ko5sZElvM9
— Mizzou Network (@MizzouNetwork) September 27, 2019
In recent times, Mizzou usually hits a win streak in November. One in October would be nice, but it won’t be a cakewalk, “outstanding chance” notwithstanding.
Has KB awakened to the fact that he has to stop throwing picks in the red zone? Can we stop giving up 75-yard TDs? Is a backup QB getting any reps in practice, in case KB is injured (and can he do the job anyway?).
(We now have one week left to prepare for Troy.)
With the exception of that great win at Florida last year, I’d argue that our October struggles and November win streaks have been pretty schedule-driven. Sure, Mizzou has played well in November, but we also get Arkansas and Tennessee every November, which recently has amounted to essentially to free spaces on the schedule.
Last year in October, we had SC, Bama, Memphis, and ranked Kentucky, all winning teams, two of them 10 win teams. This year we have four teams, none of which are guaranteed to play in a bowl game and probably none of which will finish better than about 7-5 at the best case.
I think you’re putting too much stock in the calendar month and not enough to the current dynamics of this season’s schedule. Sure, Missouri could drop a game in October, heck, they could drop two in a disaster scenario, but they’ll be heavily favored in each game, and rightly so.
Yes, yes. Whom you play makes (almost) all the difference (but not always).
What we are seeing is a senior quarterback who doesn’t know his receivers or the playbook well enough yet. Also a quarterback who can’t hide what he’s going to do because he doesn’t know ahead of time. These things will improve as the season goes along. Bryant will become the SENIOR quarterback at Missouri instead of just the starting quarterback at Missouri. In the mean time appreciate his toughness, quickness, courage, and most of all his leadership.
He’s obviously a great athlete and everybody on the team loves him, it seems. He just needs to add good judgement in the red zone to his toughness, quickness, courage, and leadership…starting with Troy.
Extreme example to establish a point of reference: If your football team has the ball on your own 1 yard line, your first priority is not to give up 2points-a ‘safety’. So your play-book is limited in some ways and your offensive line must have the push the need to get their bodies and the ie. quarterbacks body forward to the 2 yard line. Some teams are going to have a lot better lines so an extreme reality has to include punting from the 1 on first down could being the only acceptable plan.
Once the threat of taking a safety is resolved, if your team still has the ball, the opportunity is that you make the opponent defend the greatest possible amount of space. Pass play-book is at it’s maximum value and running play-book is at it maximum possible surprise potential. Kick score potential changes from zero to near sure thing from mid-field to roughly the opponents 30 yard line.
Next example, if your team has the ball near the opponents end-zone, the most important tactical objective is not to let the ball go backwards and lose any of the tactical scoring possibilities by yard-line because your team can score by pass/run/kick offense (AND by safety if you give up possession on DOWNS, FUMBLE, OR INT.). Here your team has the most limited passing potential (in theory). Running the ball has it’s least possible surprise potential. Pass/run toward the sideline has it’s maximum “RELATIVE” potential to advance the ball, because near the goal line it reaches nearly an equal access to empty space compared to the depth of field the opponent has to defend.
Giving up a fumble 6 or a pic 6 might seem psychologically the worst thing that can happen near the opponents goal line but tactically it is no different than a turnover 6 anywhere else on the field. ON A PASS PLAY HOWEVER since the opponent has the least amount of space to defend, forcing an interception 6 has it’s greatest possibility.
Now get out there and win the pee wee league superbowl with your neighborhood kids.
hahahahahaha
Just remember that Mizzou wasn’t invited into the SEC for any athletic merit or prestige. They were invited SOLELY to penetrate & capture the Kansas City & St. Louis TV markets….
it was all about increasing the SEC’s TV ratings which dictates the dollar amount of the SEC’s TV contracts with CBS & ESPN. It was all about the all mighty dollar.
Interesting…So you must work for the Southeastern Conference then? You seem to have a load of insider information regarding the decision-making process for admitting Mizzou to the conference. Or, maybe you’re just a blow-hard moron. I’m guessing the latter is closer to the truth.
I recommend going short on Geaux Long.
Geaux Long …
Advertisers insisted upon a demographic who could read.
Or because it was embarrassing that the conference only had 2 Association of American Universities accredited universities, Florida and Vanderbilt (Added in 1990 for similar reasons). In 2012 they added 2 additional AAU accredited universities in Texas A&M and Missouri. Having AAU accredited schools in the conference looks good because these are 60 of the top research institutions in North America. Mizzou was an attractive add for the SEC because it is an AAU accredited University with both a research Med School as well as a Law School and Top J school. Additionally, it was an opportunity to open up 2 large sports markets for the SEC and the SEC network.
Ignorance is blissful. Dear Geaux Long, In addition to finishing much higher than the average SEC team in one of the longest list of conference sports, Missouri also competes in sports other SEC institutions can’t. Just one example, their wrestling team has been finishing in the NCAA top 10 consistently lately. In case you didn’t notice, conferences are making a lot of money and distributing it back to their members. One way this happens is by getting more games on TV, regular season and post season. That little division championship (that makes big tv money) thing can’t happen with smaller division member numbers because it would look too much like an incomplete round robin. A lot of fans don’t like counting the non-division games now. The mere fact that there are two division races, makes viewership. The Big 12 is not better off after aTm, Colorado, Nebraska, and Missouri told them to get lost, and forced Texas to pay members 10 million more per year to keep the teams they had left. Yeah, that’s the kind of clout they shut the barn door on after they got out.