Barry Odom

Odom wore No. 39 to honor the year the university started, 1839.

Three years later, Memphis ranked 28th.

Barry Stephen Odom (born November 26, 1976) is an American football coach and currently the head coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Odom previously spent 15 years with the University of Missouri football program as a player, recruiter, assistant coach, and head coach.

Odom played high school football as a linebacker and running back at Maysville Junior-Senior High School in Maysville, Oklahoma, before transferring to Ada High School in Ada, Oklahoma for his senior season.

Intent on playing major college football at Maysville, Odom spent his senior year in Ada, where Odom helped the team to a second straight state title.

Odom's first game for Ada High School came in 1994 against their rival, Ardmore.

Odom guided the team to a 39–13 victory that night.

Odom finished his senior season with 39 touchdowns.

After Odom ran the 100-meter dash in 10.6 seconds, in the spring of his senior year, Larry Smith offered him a scholarship at the University of Missouri.

Odom played college football at the University of Missouri as a linebacker from 1996 to 1999.

He recorded 72 tackles as a freshman.

In the spring of 1997, he tore his ACL but recovered in time to start all 12 games of his sophomore season.

Odom was a key figure on the Missouri teams which reached bowl games in 1997 and 1998.

Odom helped the program turn around, which hadn't had a winning season since 1997.

Odom was chosen as a team captain as a senior in 1999 and would go on to finish with 362 tackles — the seventh-most in school history.

Odom earned his bachelor's degree from MU in 1999, and a master's degree in education from MU in 2004.

After earning his undergraduate degree in December 1999, he served as an intern with Mizzou's Tiger Scholarship Fund while he worked on his Master's in Education from the University of Missouri (which he would earn in May 2004).

He returned to his home state of Oklahoma in July of that year to serve as an assistant football coach for his alma mater Ada High School, which finished that season as runners-up for a state title.

Odom returned to his adopted hometown of Columbia, Mo., taking over as head coach at Rock Bridge High School.

The Bruins went 6–4 in 2001, a two-win improvement from the previous season.

The next year, Odom guided Rock Bridge to an 8-4 campaign and an appearance in the Class 6 semifinals.

Six weeks after the season ended, Gary Pinkel hired Odom as a graduate assistant at Missouri, and Odom began a nine-year period of serving in various roles on Gary Pinkel's staff.

In 2003, Odom returned to Missouri as an administrative graduate assistant.

Wanting to run a college program, Odom joined the Mizzou staff, first as an administrative graduate assistant for Gary Pinkel in 2003.

He spent the 2004 and 2005 seasons as Pinkel's director of recruiting as the staff assembled a core group which would help lead Mizzou to consecutive Big 12 Conference North Division titles in 2007 and 2008 which consisted of 12-win and 10-win seasons, respectively.

From 2006 to 2008, Odom helped run Pinkel's program administratively as his director of operations.

In that role, Odom oversaw coordination of the team's budget, travel plans (including bowl trips to the Sun, Cotton and Alamo bowls during that stretch), compliance issues, facilities operations and scheduling, as well as assisting with recruiting operations and managing the day-to-day overall operations of the program.

As director of football operations, he coordinated all public relations activities and community service events that required the presence of Mizzou's football student-athletes, and also played a role as part of the design and planning team that oversaw the expansion and renovation of the Mizzou Athletics Training Complex, which opened in February 2008.

In 2009, Odom took over as safeties coach under Pinkel.

He helped the Tigers climb from 104th in the nation in pass yards allowed/game in 2009, to 37th in the nation in 2010.

During his three seasons as safeties coach, the Missouri Tigers went 26–13, including a 2010 Big 12 North division title.

The 2010 team defense finished 11th in the nation in defensive pass rating, 19th nationally with 18 interceptions, 12th nationally in touchdowns allowed, 10th nationally in yards/attempt.

Memphis ranked 117th nationally in total defense in 2011, the season before Odom joined staff.

He stayed at Missouri until 2012, serving in numerous different coaching and administrative positions.

In 2012, Odom left Missouri to become defensive coordinator of the Memphis Tigers under head coach Justin Fuente.

Odom became well known due to his performance during three years directing Memphis’ defense from 2012 to 2014.

In his first season at Memphis, the defense improved to 50th nationally (383.6 avg.), followed by a jump to 39th in 2013 (370.7 avg.).

His 2014 defense was a key component of Memphis’ 10–3 season, as his unit finished the regular season ranked fifth nationally in scoring defense (17.1 avg.) and 22nd in total defense (343.3 avg.).

In 2015, Odom again returned to Missouri, this time to serve as defensive coordinator.