I kind of hate this, poaching my local coach who has brought relevance back to UNLV. I've even considered attending one of their games to experience the luxury treatment at the stadium at cut rate prices compared to that package for an NFL game.
is it Odom?
- Thread starter Thordog
- Start date
On offense as a whole? I’m sure that, like Walters, he has picked one-or-two things up. However, if you’re hiring him due to his offense at UNLV, that’s 100% Brennan Marion…
That’s the question.
Did we hire Odom because of his extensive Defensive experience and connections from his tenure at Missouri? Fine.
Did we hire him because of the success at #20 UNLV and it was “Do that here”? That only works if he brings Brennan Marion with him for multiple years, the way Tiller had Chaney…
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As with almost any new coaching hire, it's all unknown. Could fail, could be ok, could be great.
The odds improve if he gets competent staff, brings quite frankly a lot of players with him, and is given NIL help to buy talent in the portal. A slightly less brutal schedule won't hurt either.
You need to look deeper at Odom to understand what he is.
He got the job at Mizzou after Gary Pinkel announced he was retiring 2 weeks after his team threatened to boycott a game unless the university system president resigned. There is A LOT to that situation but the president ultimately resigned and the program was a complete trash fire. Odom was a hot shot DC and no one else wanted the job so he got it. The offense in Pinkel’s last year was amongst the worst in college football.
Odom’s first move as HC was to ressurect Josh Huepel’s career. Huepel at the time had been fired by Oklahoma and spent a year as OC at Utah State as he was shunned by power 5 jobs because Stoops lost it with him. Odom and Huepel were long time friends and Odom brought him on board.
Huepel stuck around for 2 years and his career has been on an upward trajectory ever since. After Huepel left, Odom nearly hired Jedd Fisch before throwing a curve ball and hiring Derek Dooley from the Dallas Cowboys. This was a high risk hire which worked out well in year one with Mizzou having an elite offense for a second consecutive year. Dooley helped Mizzou land Kelly Bryant from Clemson going into Odom’s 4th year and expectations were unnecessarily high. Team finished .500 and Odom being EXTREMELY stubborn refused to communicate with the AD at the time. The AD and Odom hated each other and the relationship was bad enough that Odom said its him or me and Odom was let go. Honestly, Odom might still be the head coach at Mizzou if he werent such a stubborn person.
After being hired by UNLV, Odom’s first hire was Bobby Petrino as OC. Bobby was there for about a week before A&M gave him a massive pay check so Odom turned to Marion.
Bottom line, Odom has made four OC hires:
Huepel
Dooley
Petrino
Marion
I would say all four have been good on some level. Dooley was the most problematic, but he wasnt a disaster. Kelly Bryant was a disaster.
Odom will hire a good OC for Purdue. I am confident of it. Odom is highly respected and an excellent football mind.
People need to understand the issue with Odom at Mizzou was he was stubborn and is not a flashy hype salesman like Drinkwitz. Mizzou people wanted someone to recruit top 15 classes. Odom is more of a developmental coach. He is a good recruiter, but he’s not flashy.
His defenses have never really been great as a HC. For the most part his teams tend to tilt offensively despite his defensive background. Its wild.
Make no mistake, Odom is amongst the top 15 defensive minds in college football right now. Were he to lose the job at Purdue, all of the major programs in the SEC and perhaps NFL would want him as a DC.
You hired him because even if he can't bring the offensive coordinator with him, he has shown he has an eye for identifying the right guy to lead that side of the ball. He hired Josh Heupel as OC when he was at Mizzoui and that turned out to be a good hire too.
So, you have some hope he can make the right hires based on actual history of doing it. To me, that's important because if you get a hot coordinator, just matter of time before someone poaches them for a promotion.
This is correct and quite frankly, at this level of college football, the elite coaches are CEO’s.
Brohm was fun as a playcaller but Kirby Smart, Nick Saban, Jim Harbaugh, etc etc… they all have their specialty on one side of the ball but they hire good coaches and let them coach while maintaining control of the culture and organization.
Odom learned a lot of tough lessons at Mizzou. If he recruits well at Purdue, he will be the most successful coach since Tiller.
I keep thinking Joe Odom, who I believe played in the Brees days.
I like the fact that he's essentially done it at multiple stops. So, it's less likely that you are getting a dude who just happened to catch lightening in the bottle at his last stop.
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