On December 4, 2016--the day Barry Odom was introduced as Missouri's head football coach--I wrote this:
Missouri hired a coach from Gary Pinkel’s staff. Missouri did not hire Gary Pinkel again.
Two games into Barry Odom's tenure, that is now obvious to anyone who didn't believe it before. This program has undergone all kinds of changes.
READ: WEDNESDAY'S DAILY DOWN LOW
Some of them--the pursuit of more high-profile recruits from more areas of the country, the earlier offers to players all over the map, but particularly in the state of Missouri--have drawn praise from fans. Others, specifically the change in the defensive scheme, have not.
That change is the hot topic among Missouri fans this week. We talked with Charles Harris about it on Tuesday. We'll have more on it tomorrow and many others have already written about it this week.
Robin Sharma, a Canadian writer and leadership trainer, has a great quote on change:
"Change is hard at the beginning, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end."
Right now, Mizzou fans are at the beginning. The beginning is hard.
The way Dave Steckel and Craig Kuligowski approached defense worked really well for Missouri for the last few years. Kuligowski in particular became a favorite among Mizzou fans. It wasn't limited to Mizzou fans. He was named the best defensive line coach in America by Football Scoop in 2014. And it was well deserved. Kul helped produce first-round NFL talents from Ziggy Hood to Shane Ray. Missouri fans have worshipped at the Altar of Kul for a while now.
But the Way of Kul isn't the only way. Other things, believe it or not, can work.
Jackie Shipp has done some things that work over a 25-year career. He's coached Tommie Harris and Gerald McCoy and some guys that have been all right up front. DeMontie Cross has coached all over the country and in the NFL for 18 years. Odom himself revived a terrible Memphis defense and ran the show for last year's Mizzou D that dragged a zero-win offense to 5-and-7. These guys didn't forget how to coach defense.
Now, look, this isn't a blind defense of what the Missouri staff is doing. Harris has gone from preseason all-American candidate to a guy that's almost made some plays in the backfield. The guys on the other side have barely been heard from in the first two games (let's not completely ignore the impact of booting Walter Brady off the team here). There's no question it needs to get better.
Let's go back to that quote. Change is gorgeous at the end.
Well, not always. Sometimes change happens and it doesn't work. Anyone who runs a business has seen that firsthand. Some ideas work, some fail. And I don't know if this one will work. It might not be gorgeous at the end.
But--and this is the key point--we aren't AT the end. We are two games in. One-sixth of the way through the first season. If I had to bet, I'd bet the Missouri defense looks a good amount better in mid-October than it does in mid-September. And probably better than that by the time Arkansas rolls into town the day after Thanksgiving.
The only thing harder than change is having the patience to let change occur. It's a lot to ask, especially when the Tigers have Georgia coming to town on Saturday. But patience is going to be necessary.
Missouri didn't hire Barry Odom to be Gary Pinkel. And even Gary Pinkel knows that would have been a terrible idea.
“When I left Don James and went to work for Toledo, I tried a little bit to be like Don James for the first year or two. I kind of figured it out after that. I’ve got to be Gary Pinkel,” the long-time Tiger coach said the day Odom was introduced as his successor. “I think we’ve got a pretty good foundation here, but this is Barry Odom’s program. He'll put his stamp on every area and build on the foundation.”
Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither is a football program. Change is hard. Change can get messy. But Missouri fans have to give it a chance to see if it ends up being gorgeous.
