Missouri fired coach Barry Odom on Saturday, a day after their win over Arkansas to conclude a season of high expectations at 6-6. Odom went 25-25 and 13-19 in SEC play during four seasons. Odom was also 0-2 in bowl games. The news also comes after the NCAA on Tuesday upheld a postseason ban and other sanctions against football, baseball and softball. Odom, a former Tigers linebacker was hired by former athletic director Mack Rhoades hired Odom after Gary Pinkel resigned following the 2015 season. Sterk was hired in August 2016 and gave Odom a contract extension after the 2018 season.
Odom’s firing comes less than a year after he received his extension that was set to run through 2024, a two-year extension, that included a raise his base pay to $3.05 million. According to his buyout, Odom will be paid his base salary of $450,000 times the number of years remaining on his contract which would be five more seasons.
STATEMENT FROM A.D. Jim Sterk
“I want to thank Coach Odom for his contributions to our program. He and his staff have worked diligently during the past four years. Coach Odom has represented our program with integrity and dedicated himself to developing our student-athletes on and off the football field for which we are grateful. We wish the very best for him and his family in their future endeavors. As a program, we had tremendous momentum coming into the 2019 season with the opening of the new south end zone facility as well as other strategic investments in our football program, however, we lost a great deal of that energy during the last half of the season. This decision was difficult to make but was necessary. Mizzou enjoys a winning football tradition and has the necessary resources and commitment to compete at the highest level. We strive to achieve excellence, and we expect to compete for Southeastern Conference titles, consistently play in the postseason and represent Mizzou the right way on and off the field. A national search is underway and confidentiality during the process is critical. Thus, I will have no further public comments regarding the search process until the announcement of our next head football coach is made.”