Notebook: Mizzou hoping for NCAA resolution before Friday

On Jan. 31, Missouri head football coach Barry Odom called an emergency meeting of his players and broke the news. As a result of a tutoring scandal, the NCAA announced that the Tigers would be banned from the postseason after the 2019 season, among other sanctions.

Missouri vowed to appeal the penalties and did so, which resulted in the sanctions being stayed until an appeals committee presented a final ruling. No seniors left the team despite the uncertainty and their ability to do so without having to sit out a year. Most expected the final word to come around the start of the college football season, maybe a few weeks before or after.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving week. As Missouri prepares to conclude its regular season against Arkansas on Friday, a lot about this season has not gone as expected. A team that was hyped as a dark horse SEC East contender has lost five games in a row and must beat Arkansas to achieve bowl eligibility. But one thing has remained the same: the Tigers are still awaiting word on their postseason eligibility.

The wait might not be much longer. Missouri deputy athletics director Nick Joos said the SEC has been pressuring the appeals committee to release a decision prior to bowl selection Sunday on Dec. 8. If the decision takes longer than that, the postseason ban, if upheld, could spill over to the 2020 season.

Odom hopes Joos is correct. At this point, he said he is ready to accept whatever the appeals committee decides, but he just wants a resolution.

“Here we are yet in the last week of the season, we still don't know,” Odom said. “... I think for everybody, you know we’ll be anxious to find out when that (ruling) is and what it is, but also the clock's ticking. And just waiting on the phone to call.”

Not only has the delayed resolution resulted in uncertainty about whether Friday will mark Missouri’s final game of the season regardless of the result, the athletics department is also still waiting to find out whether it will lose out on the SEC’s bowl revenue, which is projected to be about $8 million. Plus, the initial sanctions include recruiting restrictions and a scholarship reduction, which Odom said impacts the number of prospects the Tigers can sign in next month’s early signing period. So far, Missouri has 17 players committed.

“I'm not gonna walk into a living room and say, ‘hey we want you at Mizzou,’ and then come back next week or two weeks from now and say, ‘yeah, I didn't really mean that, we don't have a spot,” Odom said. “So it's impactful on every level, if you try to put together a recruiting plan and a calendar and you don’t know what you're dealing with. ... And I just need the word, either go or (stay) where we are.”

Odom’s players say they’ve dealt with the uncertainty by simply assuming Friday’s game will be the final one of the season. Quarterback Kelly Bryant and left tackle Yasir Durant, both seniors, said they have tried to approach each of the last several games like it’s their final college contest, and that won’t change now that it’s actually the last game of the regular season.

“For the past like six weeks, it was the most important game for us, so that’s the way we’re going to approach it this week, no matter if it’s the last game, if we got a bowl game or whatever,” Durant said. “We’re approaching it as we gotta get a win no matter what.”

It’s distinctly possible that Missouri could learn its fate from the appeals committee before it kicks off against Arkansas at 1:30 p.m. Friday. But if it doesn’t, slot receiver Barrett Banister said the team won’t let that impact its focus. After nearly 10 months of uncertainty, what’s a few more days?

“At the end of the day we’ve gotta control what we can control,” Banister said. “It’s been on our heads for a while, and we haven’t been in control of the situation since then. … All we can do is go out and try to play a good 60 minutes of football.”

A banged up Missouri team has one fewer day than usual to get healthy before this week’s game. The Tigers had three starters miss last week’s game against Tennessee: tight end Albert Okwuegbunam, slot receiver Johnathon Johnson and cornerback DeMarkus Acy. Fellow cornerback Jarvis Ware also left the game with injury in the first quarter and did not return.

Odom said he expected Ware to practice Monday and suit up against Arkansas. The other three players seemed more in doubt. Odom said the team would evaluate their statuses after seeing how much they could do Monday. All three players were listed as co-starters on the team’s depth chart.

“If we can get out and go tonight, then, and obviously signs point in the right direction,” Odom said. “If they can't, then we’ll adjust.”

Meanwhile, quarterback Kelly Bryant has played every snap the past two games, but he is not at full health. Bryant appeared hobbled on a few plays against Tennessee, and after the game Odom said he is less than 100 percent. Offensive coordinator Derek Dooley said Monday that Bryant has not been at full strength since early in the team’s loss to Kentucky on Oct. 26. Not only has he still been slowed by the hamstring strain he suffered during that loss, which forced him to miss the following game against Georgia, he has battled a knee injury as well. Bryant said he took a hit to the knee against Florida and had to get it drained prior to Saturday’s game against Tennessee.

“I think I got hit on it and just got to like Tuesday, got a little swelling in it and just tried to see if the swelling would go down, whether to get it drained before the game or the swelling would go down,” Bryant said. “So had to get it drained right before the game. So that’s something I’ve been dealing with also.”

Dooley said Bryant’s injuries have hindered his running game and ability to escape pressure, though he also said the team has enough plays to win games even with an injured Bryant. He also said it’s been difficult for the coaches to evaluate when Bryant is too compromised to be effective. Dooley didn’t say whether sophomore Taylor Powell or freshman Connor Bazelak would play if Bryant can’t go against Arkansas.

“It’s our job to evaluate, is he too hurt to pull it?” Dooley said of Bryant. “It’s not fair to him to put him out there when he’s too hurt. And there was a part in the game where I’m looking at him, and I’m like, he looks hurt. But he’s a fighter, and that’s what makes it so hard, and the game is within a score, and so it’s hard to make that decision in that circumstance. So he’s got an incredible amount of will and heart and he doesn’t say one word. It’s hard to even know if he’s hurting. There’s not many guys that probably would have been playing.”

One of the players who has seen his role expand due to injury has been Banister. With Johnson out of the lineup the past three games, the redshirt sophomore has led all Missouri wideouts with 11 catches for 97 yards.

The former walk-on from Fayetteville high school said he is especially excited for this week’s matchup. He’s had this matchup with his home-state school circled on his calendar all year.

“It’s a team I grew up watching my whole life and I’ve got a lot of friends on that team,” Banister said. “Just a lot of connections to that whole entire program and that state. … It’s a personal game for me.”

Banister drew high praise from Dooley. In a season in which the team’s receivers have largely disappointed — running back Tyler Badie leads the team in receptions — Dooley said Banister has been a bright spot.

“I don’t think there’s anybody on our team who does as good a job every day of working to be his absolute best than Barrett,” Dooley said. “He really is an inspiration. He should be an inspiration for everyone. On offense, our big thing is you gotta know what to do, you gotta know how to do it, you gotta know why it’s important to do it that way. And you gotta do it with tremendous effort and toughness. And he just follows that motto. And it’s because of that that he’s had the success that he’s had. Even though you could sit there and say he doesn’t have near the physical traits that some other guys have. But he’s a 10 times better football player. It’s important to him, he loves the game, he’s not out there trying to be cool, he’s not complaining about anything we have to do.”

For the first time since he came to Missouri prior to last season, Dooley spent Saturday’s game on the sideline rather than coaching from the booth. He admitted that he made the move simply because the offense needed something to change — it hadn’t scored a touchdown in two games in a row — but he said he enjoyed being able to speak to the players face-to-face.

I’m really more made for the sideline, anyway, and it helped me engage with all of our guys, it helped them sustain through the game when things got tough or we got behind,” Dooley said. “... So it was good, and it helps me to look at the quarterback, talk to him. Maybe it was something I should have done earlier in the year.”

The dominant storyline surrounding Missouri’s team during its five-game losing streak has been the future of Odom as head coach. Odom said he met with athletics director Jim Sterk this week, as he does every week, but didn’t go into any further detail when asked about his job security.

No surprise, Odom’s assistants and players continued to speak in support of him Monday.

“Coach Odom is awesome,” Dooley said. “He believed in me when he hired me and I’ll always be grateful for that. He’s just been a phenomenal head coach to work for.”

“We have all the faith in the world (in Odom),” Bryant said. “We love him, we love playing for him. There’s no other guy that I would rather play for. … I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for coach Odom.”

"Whenever I got here, I was best friends with guys like Drew (Lock) and Paul (Adams) on the team, and hearing from what this program has came from — more than just wins and losses, what went on in the locker room and what was surrounding this program, — coach Odom has done a tremendous job of cleaning it up, and I think that the foundation is set for us to go in this near future to go out and win a lot of games," said Banister. "... He's the man to get things going."