As has been expected since the end of the regular season, Barry Odom agreed to a two-year contract extension with Missouri today. The school announced the deal in a release on Saturday afternoon. The extension has Odom under contract through February of 2023.
Odom's guaranteed salary remains $2.35 million per year, which is the lowest among the 14 SEC head coaches. Derek Mason makes a reported 2.55 million at Vanderbilt and Will Muschamp (South Carolina) and Matt Luke (Ole Miss) make three million apiece. Odom's base salary is $450,000. The buyout if Missouri should fire Odom is the base salary multiplied by the number of years left on the contract, meaning Mizzou would owe a maximum of $2.25 million.
The extension added a new incentive to Odom's deal. He will receive 20% of ticket revenue above $11.7 million dollars. The Memorandum of Understanding released by Missouri did not include any information on the money available for his assistant coaches.
“We are pleased that we were able to reward Coach Odom for his performance this season with a two-year contract extension,” Director of Athletics Jim Sterk said in a release from Mizzou. “Mizzou Football has great momentum on the field with six-straight victories heading into the Texas Bowl, one of the top football Graduation Success Rates in the Southeastern Conference and ground-breaking for the new Memorial Stadium South End Zone Building slated for early next year. Coach Odom has tremendous passion for Mizzou and I look forward to watching him lead our football program for many years to come.”
"I am excited for the future of this program, as we have made positive steps over the course of the last two years,” Odom said in the release. “I am so appreciative of my team and staff; they continually work together to make Mizzou Football a great representative of our University. The stability that this will provide for us to continue to provide a foundation for our student-athletes to be successful for the next 50 years of their lives is important. The leadership from Mr. Sterk and our administration is moving Mizzou forward in a great way, and I am certainly grateful for their support.”
The Tigers started the season with five losses in six games, which had talk heating up that Odom would be fired. But Mizzou won its final six games of the season by an average of more than 22 points per game. The Tigers will face Texas in the Texas Bowl on December 27th, their first postseason game in three years.
Odom's next task is rebuilding his coaching staff. Offensive coordinator Josh Heupel was named the head coach at UCF on Tuesday. PowerMizzou.com broke the news on Friday that offensive line coach Glen Elarbee would follow Heupel.
Odom promoted secondary coach Ryan Walters to full-time defensive coordinator on Friday, replacing DeMontie Cross, who was fired early in the 2017 season. In all, Odom will need to hire a linebackers coach, an offensive line coach, a quarterbacks coach and an offensive coordinator. On January 9, 2018, teams will also be allowed to hire a 10th full-time assistant. So in the next month, Odom will need to fill five vacancies with four people.
Odom talked about the coaching moves following Friday afternoon's practice. Watch the full interview below.
