I want to start this off by talking about Barry Odom for a moment. Any first time head coach is going to make some mistakes, and if you gave Barry a dose of truth serum and asked him to list his mistakes at Mizzou, the hiring of his staff would probably be up at the top of his list. And that’s okay! The first time you do something is rarely great and learning on the job at the FBS level — and the SEC to boot — is impossibly difficult.
But as good as Odom was at identifying player talent, he was inversely scattershot at identifying coaching talent and crafting a staff.