Yesterday Jim Sterk, the Missouri Athletic Director, made the decision to fire his football coach Barry Odom after the Tigers disappointing 6-6 finish to a season which started out with so much promise.
Sterk was hired late in the summer of 2016, months after Barry Odom was named the head coach. Athletic Directors who are hired after football coaches often have tenuous relationships with the previously anointed head man for the major cash cow of the University. For most schools, that’s the football coach. There is no allegiance since they weren’t the decision maker, so the success or failure of said coach never falls on the Athletic Director.