New Missouri football coach Barry Odom has the task of rebuilding a program that went 5-7 last year and made national headlines by threatening to boycott a late-season game.
Odom also has a marketing opportunity following the relocation earlier this year of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams to Los Angeles.
“An hour-and-a-half down the road, and you’re in downtown St. Louis,” Odom said last week on a teleconference, “and for us to be able to attract some who are missing out with the Rams would obviously be important for us and the relationships that we’ve got within that city. We’ve got to continue to develop those, and obviously I want the University of Missouri to be a team that the entire state follows.
“Without question, St. Louis and Mizzou need to be a team together.”
St. Louis is without a professional football franchise for the first time since 1994. The Rams moved to Missouri from California in 1995 and had a lot of early success, reaching the playoffs five times in a six-year stretch from 1999 to 2004.