Mizzou Football: Head coaching job among best vacancies
By Cullen Jekel
And that brings us to the Missouri Tigers, a program not exactly in the dumps, but not lighting the world on fire, either.
It’s an odd thing to consider that the Tigers will most likely/probably bring in an outside voice as the team’s next head coach. That hasn’t happened at Missouri since the Tigers hired Gary Pinkel away from Toledo after the 2000 season to replace Larry Smith. When Barry Odom replaced Pinkel, he was promoted from within the staff as he’d served as Pinkel’s defensive coordinator.
In Odom’s four seasons, he only had one losing season, his first, back in 2016, when the Tigers went 4-8 (2-6). After that, with quarterback Drew Lock under center, the Tigers reached back-to-back bowl games, losing both, before this disastrous season.
With expectations high due to quarterback Kelly Bryant‘s arrival from Clemson and a very weak schedule, the season started off on an ominous note with a loss to the Wyoming Cowboys in Laramie. After that, Mizzou rattled off five straight wins to get ranked No. 22 before facing Vanderbilt in Nashville.
The rest, as they say, is history: a dud against the Commodores was followed by another four consecutive losses, at which point the Tigers were under .500 and needing a win against Arkansas to reach 6-6. They got that win, but thankfully, Sterk didn’t decide Odom’s fate based on a meaningless game versus a punchless has-been.
The message from Sterk to the next head coach is clear: staying afloat isn’t enough. Winning eight games isn’t enough. Going 25-25 over 50 games isn’t enough. The Tigers are expected to compete for the SEC East on a year in, year out basis. Anything less won’t be tolerated for long.
Which brings us to the clear front-runner for the best available job: Florida State. The Seminoles booted Willie Taggart after less than two years of below-average play. The Seminoles, once the toast of the nation and then discarded for (gross) College Station, Texas, want to get back to where they were in the early years of Jimbo Fisher’s tenure and where they were for the bulk of Bobby Bowden’s time there: as the nexus of the college football universe.
Florida State has money to spend, has tradition to throw in your face, and is a force when it comes to recruiting. Unlike some jobs, where the coach has to be a regional fit, just about anyone can fit in Tallahassee–as long as he wins.
Without a doubt, the Florida State Seminoles will have the pick of the litter when it comes to its next head coach.