Following Missouri’s 51-14 loss to the Auburn Tigers at Saturday night, Barry Odom told the media to get ready. He was going to give us an update on the state of Mizzou football.  Boy did he ever.

Last week after the Purdue loss, Odom looked like a beaten coach. After Auburn, Odom looked like a man on a mission. He wanted fans, his players, and perhaps even his boss to see that he is the right man for the job who knows how to battle through adversity.

Odom emphasized that this was “a turnaround,” meaning success wasn’t going to happen right away. After a 4-8 season in his first year, fans expectations were this team should get to 6-6 at least and 7 or 8 wins were within reach. After a 1-3 start in which the team appears to be going backwards, Odom says things are moving forward and this will take time.

Odom pointed out that when he was a player at Mizzou in the late 90’s, his head coach Larry Smith battled for many years to bring a winner. He also pointed out that Gary Pinkel’s name was on the hot seat when he first arrived. As a matter of fact, I recall fans wanted Pinkel to get the pink slip after year one in the SEC. Odom also shared his experiences in Memphis where he was on a staff that went from bad to conference champ in a short amount of time.