COLUMBIA, MO. • For more than a year, Barry Odom wore the same black Mizzou cap that equipment director Don Barnes handed him the first day of spring practice last year. It survived August humidity and regular-season stress. In December, Odom landed a new job, promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach, but the cap didn’t change.
The black cotton fabric started to fade into a rusty gray this spring — even Odom’s wife, Tia, suggested he trade in the lid after a March practice — but there it was perched on the coach’s dome for Saturday’s Black and Gold Game, the public culmination of a mostly shrouded spring for the Tigers.