Mizzou Media Day Notebook
Football coaches like to talk about the 24-hour rule. Win or lose, that’s about how long you have to move past one game and on to the next one.
“That’s what good teams have to do,” Missouri safety Cam Hilton said.
But for the Tigers, the 24 hours after a 28-27 last-second loss to Georgia were harder than most.
“It sucked. Losing sucks. Losing like that sucks even more,” linebacker Michael Scherer said. ‘I fell asleep at like six a.m. on Sunday morning and I woke up at like eight. You know, losing just sucks.”
“I went to sleep about five,” defensive tackle Rickey Hatley said. “Just wide awake, trying to watch TV, just tossing and turning, just thinking about what could I have done even more to help us succeed at the end?
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“Saturday night was really a long sleepless night for me just knowing I had Georgia right in the palm of my hand.”
It was a battle virtually every player had with himself after Georgia scored the go-ahead touchdown with 1:29 to play and preserved the win recovering a Missouri fumble on the first play of the next possession.
“Since I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve took a loss like that at all. It hurts a lot. As bad as I want to win, and win every play, coming down to the last play and me giving up a touchdown, it hurts a lot,” cornerback Aarion Penton said. “I probably won’t be over it for a while. I’m gonna remember this one for a long time.
“Personally, because of how I am and who I am, I never want that to happen again.”
That attitude rolled down from the head coach, who fought back emotion in the post-game press conference on Saturday night. Barry Odom was much more composed on Monday afternoon at media day, but he was no more accepting of the result.
““We’re not really into participation awards. We want to win and I’m not gonna apologize for that. I like my guys. I like the resolve,” Odom said. ““There was frustration, there was anger, there was sadness, all the things that go along with pouring your soul into something and coming away on the wrong end of things. That hurts. And that’s okay. Again, we’re not in it to participate. We’re in it to win things. I will stand by that every day of the week. That’s the way my program is going to be built. There’s a winner and loser in everything that we do.
“This will make us a better program. This will make us have a little bit more toughness. That’s what trying times do.”
Odom admitted he hates losing more than he loves winning.
“I celebrate wins like nobody’s business and I live in misery with losses,” he said. “That’s the way that I have to function. That’s me. I’d like to give you a bunch of coach talk, but that’s who I am.”
And that emotion, that passion, is something that his players did not take lightly after the loss.
“He’s definitely probably the best leader I’ve ever been around,” Scherer said. “You got to have a head coach that you’re willing to run through a brick wall for. When you see him kind of sharing the same emotions that we have, feeling the same way that we are and you see how passionate he is about it, you see how much he cares about us, that’s when you say, ‘All right, he’s with us in this and we’re going to do whatever we can to make sure that man is successful. It’s not so much about us, I think when you look at his passion, you look at what he’s taught us and what he’s done for everyone here, you’re like, ‘I’m not gonna let that man down.’”
The healing process began Sunday and will continue throughout the week for the Tigers.
“We have to forget about it and learn from it and become a better team,” Hilton said. “People say that all the time, but this team, I don’t know there’s something special about it. Give us some time and something’s going to click and we’re going to push past that wall that’s stopping us.”
A SPECIAL BOND
If Scherer and Odom sound similar, well, maybe they are. Odom was asked about his middle linebacker’s importance to the defense and the program on Monday. And he was as effusive with his praise as a college football is likely to ever be.
“I’ve got two sons and if they grow up and they’re like Michael Scherer then I know that I did something right as a dad. He’s unbelievable,” Odom said. “Such an unbelievable kid. Ambassador for our program, ambassador for the state of Missouri. St. Louis kid that could have gone a lot of different places, chose to come here and he’s going to be able to write his own script and do everything he wanted to as a student-athlete at Mizzou. Unbelievable competitor. I really like him.”
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“It’s awesome that he feels that way about me,” Scherer said when told of Odom’s words. “Since he’s gotten here, he’s been like a father away from home for me. I consider his family my family and I’ve got a very close relationship with both of his kids. It’s awesome that me and him can have the type of relationship that we do.”
To be truthful, though it had been only about ten minutes, Scherer already knew what Odom had said. He also knew about Georgia offensive line coach Sam Pittman asking if Scherer and Odom had played together at Mizzou.
“My friends feel the need to text me everything you guys tweet,” Scherer said with a laugh. “So I’ve got like eight pictures of everything you guys tweeted.”
“When you’re a good player and you’ve played for as long as Mike has on that level, you get some recognition,” Odom said. “He deserves everything he gets.”
WELCOME BACK, MR. HARRIS
After two weeks in relative obscurity, Charles Harris returned with a bang against the Bulldogs. He had three sacks and four tackles for a loss on the night as Missouri’s defense flashed some of its stuff from a season ago.
“That felt good. I know we lost, but to see the D-Line get back in the backfield, creating penetration, making the Georgia O-line work for every yard they got, feels good to hit the QB a couple times,” Hatley said. “Charles getting sacks. It feels good.”
Hatley said he could see a change in his linemate as soon as Harris collected that first sack.
“I see him celebrating, he’s on the sideline smiling. For the past couple of games he was like walking around mad, angry at everybody. But to see him like that, he can smell blood now.”
“We’ve been waiting on Charles to come out of the water and go for three or four or five sacks a game,” Penton said. “That brought us together finally seeing him elusive and getting the sacks that he really wanted and worked hard for.”
“It makes everybody’s job a lot easier,” safety Thomas Wilson said. “He’s a great player and he played his heart out.”
HILTON BREAKS THROUGH
Cam Hilton has bounced from defense to offense and now back to defense. While he was one of Mizzou’s more reliable receivers for a struggling passing game last season, he opted to move back to safety prior to spring football. On Saturday night, it looked like a smart decision. Hilton had an interception that set up a Missouri touchdown and broke up a third-down pass to preserve Missouri’s lead on the play before the game-winning touchdown.
“I still think he could come over and make plays for us here on the offensive side of the ball,” quarterback Drew Lock, one of Hilton’s best friends, said. “But with our depth on the offensive side of the ball, he’s better off over there playing defense and he’s helping them out tremendously. I think he’s in the right spot.”
Through the position volleying, Hilton hadn’t found consistent playing time until the Georgia game, when he came in when Missouri went to its nickel defense. And while he played well, his coach and teammates say he can do more.
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“He played for my pops when he was like fourth grade up. I’ve been watching Cam since I was in high school. He was doing the same thing in fourth grade that he’s doing now. He hasn’t changed. He makes plays. He’s been making plays since he was ten years old,” Scherer said. “He needs to grow up and really focus on practicing well so he can help us even more. He’s got unlimited talent.”
Hilton is an elite athlete. Next up is the task of becoming an elite football player.
“His athletic ability is different than some in a good way. He’s got to slow down just a little bit if that makes sense and have his eyes in the right spot,” Odom said. “He’s so quick, sometimes he gets out of position, just because not trusting exactly what he’s seeing. That comes with reps and that comes with a little bit of experience.”
“Sometimes I try to I guess I use my abilities more than my reads” Hilton said. “I could work on that.”
IT'S A GREAT DAY TO BE A TIGER
Every day, Odom is greeted the same way by redshirt sophomore tight end Kendall Blanton.
“Every day he runs out to the practice field, gives me a high five and says ‘It’s a great day to be a Tiger!’” Odom said. “He’s got an unbelievable attitude and he enjoys practicing, he enjoys competing.”
“Sometimes you might not want to practice, but I just try to have something positive to look at every day,” Blanton said. “They gave me this chance to be here. I didn’t have a lot of chances to be anywhere else and they gave me an opportunity to be here. I’m grateful for that opportunity so it’s a great day to be a Tiger every day I come out here.”
Blanton was a two-star tight end out of Blue Springs South. He committed to Missouri in March of his junior year and more or less shut down his recruiting process. In his first two seasons, Blanton redshirted and then played on special teams. Through three games in 2016, he has six catches for 57 yards and a touchdown.
“He’s become a leader for us in the way that he’s practiced and the way that he’s playing,” Odom said. “He’s matured. That’s a huge understatement. Last year, most weeks he was down with me on the scout field being the scout team tight end.”
“That guys’ been great since the day he stepped on campus,” tight end Jason Reese said. “He’s been focused, he’s just been waiting for his chance. I knew once his chance came he wasn’t going to let that go to waste.”
JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE
In the season opener against West Virginia, Tucker McCann missed two of his three field goals and had an ugly line drive kickoff. In game two, McCann relieved Turner Adams and missed his first extra point attempt. And then Odom tried a new approach.
“I’m glad I took some sport psychology classes,” the head coach said. "“I’ve gone from coaching him really really hard to not saying anything.”
And then McCann went out and made both his field goals, all three extra points and put every kickoff in the end zone against Georgia.
“I think so," the freshman kicker said when asked if the hands-off approach had helped. “When he was kind of hard on me, I liked that too because I needed to kind of pick my game up. It kind of sparked the fire so it helped me a lot.”
Football is a physical game. But kicker is a mental position.
“I’d say it’s 90 percent mental,” McCann said. “At this point, once you get to this level, you obviously know you can kick if you’re on a D1 team. Being consistent with your form, with your team it’s pretty much mental.”
And his coach seems to have found a mental approach that’s working for both of them.
“That seems to work” Odom said. “So I’ll try that again this week.”
GAME DAY INFORMATION
Missouri and Delaware State will kick off at 3 p.m. on Saturday. The game is being televised on the SEC Network with Dave Neal, Matt Stinchcomb and Olivia Harlan on the call. Mike Kelly, Howard Richards and Chris Gervino have the radio call on the Tiger Radio Network.