It’s just about #SearchSZN in college football. For a handful of schools, there are dreams of conference titles and playoffs. For many more, it’s time for fans to debate online which members of the coaching staff should be fired. A season that started with hopes of being in the first group for Missouri has wilted into the second with four straight losses and an offense that hasn’t found the end zone in its last 30 possessions.

If you follow Missouri football even casually, the only discussion of any significance over the last few weeks has been whether Barry Odom will return for a fifth season as the Missouri head coach. The chatter has increased in volume with every loss and Missouri players have most certainly heard it, largely because they do not live under rocks.

“They been doing that since he got the job,” fifth year senior Richaud Floyd said. “So it’s nothing new. But you can’t listen to the noise.”

“You always got to block out the outside noise,” cornerback Jarvis Ware said. “Like they always say, they gonna be with you when you up and when you down you don’t know where everybody’s at.”

It’s the mantra of every coach in the history of every sport at any level. We’re all we’ve got. Us against the world. Nothing outside these walls matters. It sounds good. In a perfect world, it would even happen. But Missouri’s coaches know it’s a largely empty message.

“It's very unrealistic,” Odom said. “They hear and see and read and listen. You know, every day, that's human nature.”

“I would venture to say it’s impossible,” offensive coordinator Derek Dooley, no stranger to heat these days himself, said. “It is a hard thing to do. It’s a hard thing to do as an adult, much less a kid.”

Defensive coordinator Ryan Walters has largely avoided the online wrath of Tiger fans this year, at least since an opening week loss to Wyoming. But he’s no stranger to it. He says once the season starts, he turns off all social media notifications, doesn’t read articles, doesn’t watch the news and only uses Twitter for recruiting.

“They’re non-existent,” Walters said of his notifications. “It doesn’t affect me. It did a little bit last year after the Purdue game and that’s why I started turning it off. I learned from that and I talk about that to our guys all the time. I don’t think it’s talked about enough in our profession and college football. As coaches we didn’t have to go through that as players. We didn’t have social media. Everybody’s a critic and everybody’s a reporter.”

The critics are loud these days. And they are not without merit. Missouri started this season as a darkhorse SEC surprise. With Kelly Bryant at quarterback, a host of returning pieces and a schedule that looked like it was made out by Odom’s agent, there were a lot of reasons to legitimately feel good this was the year the Tigers were going to break back through and be a real factor in the country’s best conference. That’s all gone now. The goals have been adjusted.

“The focus is just 1-0 each week,” linebacker Nick Bolton said. “We lost the last four, but we still have a chance to win the last two and finish third on our side of the SEC. So our focus is just trying to be 1-0 this week, trying to find ways to get a win. Doesn’t have to be a pretty win.”

Finished third in a seven-team division isn’t exactly the type of thing coaches use as a selling point in contract negotiations. But it is what Missouri has left at this point. While fans can lament the last ten weeks and reporters can dissect every snap to discuss exactly where it went so wrong, the coaches and players don’t have that luxury.

“It’s definitely hard to turn the page,” sophomore receiver Jalen Knox said. “You want to win every game. Whenever you do lose those games, it’s just kind of like sticks with you, it kind of eats at you. You’re getting a scholarship to come out here and win games. So when you’re coming out here and not performing, not doing what you’re supposed to do, it kind of eats at you. But at the end of the day it’s also kind of a job so you can’t hang your head. You just got to keep your head up and just keep on going about your business. Nobody cares. Keep working.”

There is sentiment among the fanbase that the Tigers are playing for Odom’s job the next two weeks. Even those who have already rendered their verdict and believe he should be fired mostly admit there is almost no chance of that if he can beat Tennessee and Arkansas. While it wouldn’t make the season a success, it would salvage something. It would be the third consecutive winning season and third straight bowl game under Odom after a 4-8 debut season.

But what if that doesn’t happen? We asked the Tigers if they feel like they’re playing for their coach’s job the next two weeks.

“I think everyone in the locker room believes in our coaches, our coaching staff,” Bolton said. "Coach Odom’s put his heart in this program. It’s just really up to us to execute. You can jus go dissect the film and see that there’s plays left out there.

"It’s kind of like looking yourself in the mirror saying I got to be better.”

“I feel like coach Odom’s job is secure,” Knox said. “We know what type of coach he is and how good of a guy he is. I don’t feel like anything’s on coach Odom. Early in the season, everybody was praising coach Odom and saying how good of a job he was doing with the program. People that want him fired, just cause of how these last few weeks have gone. I don’t really think too much about that. I don’t think coach Odom’s going anywhere.”

“If you don’t fight for Coach Odom, you’re a bad person, to me,” Floyd said.

"Players support coach" is hardly a breaking news headline. The news would be if they didn’t support him. Ultimately, the decision will come down to just one man: Mizzou Director of Athletics Jim Sterk.

Odom said at his Tuesday media briefing that he has not had any discussions about the future with Sterk beyond regular weekly meetings throughout the season. Asked if he had doubts he would return next season, Odom pointed to some of the progress he believes he has made in four seasons.

“I know the body of work and what we've done,” he said. “Do I wish we would have won more up to this point? Absolutely. So does everybody else. We know the foundation and the culture of the locker room that we have. I'm proud of that. I'm in a really good spot on knowing what we've got in the staff room, what we got a locker room, and what we can do here over the next two weeks or 10 days. And what that's going to do to springboard us into next year."

Sterk offered this response when asked by PowerMizzou.com for a statement about Odom’s future beyond this season:

“Coach Odom, his staff and student-athletes have worked incredibly hard since beginning their journey together back in January, and I know they are disappointed in their on-field performance over the last four games after a 5-1 start vaulted Mizzou into the AP Top 25.

"It is important to note that in the Associated Press Poll era, only two Mizzou coaches, Dan Devine and Warren Powers, have won more games in their first four seasons in Columbia than Coach Odom. He has not allowed the still unknown outcome of Mizzou’s NCAA appeal or key injuries stop him, the staff or players from continuing to build a positive locker room culture within our program, which includes record-setting academic success the past two semesters, and I remain supportive of his efforts.

I look forward to the Tigers becoming bowl-eligible for the third-straight year, something Mizzou hasn’t accomplished in nearly a decade, and sending our 18 seniors out on a high note in our final two regular season games.”

Obviously, that's not exactly an answer. Staying or going? It’s become an annual dance with Odom and Tiger fans, thought it admittedly has taken place earlier in the calendar before a November rescue the last couple of years. There are two more games to play. Very shortly after that, Sterk’s decision will be known to all. If there are fans who have given up on the season with a sixth of it left to go, the players insist they can’t and won’t do the same.

“This season definitely isn’t like what we wanted out of the season, the things that we planned for,” Knox said. “But things happen. You really just can’t look back on it and be down about it. You’ve got to just keep pushing forward.

“The only thing left is to just go get these last two games and get the best of what’s coming for us.”