WSU quality control assistant Brian Odom leaves to join his brother's staff at Missouri
Washington State defensive quality control assistant Brian Odom has left to join his older brother’s staff at Missouri, the University of Missouri athletic department announced Friday morning.
“I’m excited to have Brian join our staff, he will be a great fit for us in a variety of roles,” Missouri head coach Barry Odom said in a statement released by the Tigers’ athletic department. “He has an understanding of the defensive structure we’re going to run, he’s been around it extensively his last couple of years at Washington State, and he and I have spent a lot of time together personally prior to that studying and sharing defensive philosophies.
“He’s got a great mind for football, and he has a strong background in leading, mentoring and motivating players to improve themselves and attain goals. I know what I’m getting with Brian, and I know the opportunity to be back at Mizzou means a lot to him.”
This opportunity at Missouri will give Odom his first full-time assistant coaching job. Odom joined Alex Grinch’s defensive staff at WSU before the 2015 season. He served an auxiliary role as defensive quality control assistant, but was temporarily elevated to full-time assistant coach status at the end of the season after inside receivers coach David Yost left for Oregon so that the Cougars could send him out on the road to help with recruiting.
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Prior to Odom’s arrival in Pullman, he served as Co-Director of Sports Performance at Houston, where he ran the football team’s strength and conditioning program.
Odom will now coach the outside linebackers coach at Missouri, where he began his career as a defensive graduate assistant under Grinch’s uncle, Gary Pinkel, in 2005. Grinch himself came to WSU from Missouri, where he was the safeties coach from 2012-14.
“He was vital to our staff,” Grinch said in a statement. “When you have someone who was a head strength coach like he was, he’s basically ran his own football program. It’s a unique deal, only something that a head coach and a head strength coach know about. To run a position room, that becomes a little easier with the background he has.
“Having that kind of perspective, in terms of motivating and dealing with players on a day-to-day basis, it’s a feather in his cap. Brian is a big detail-oriented guy. We’ll miss him here and I know he’ll do a great job at Mizzou.”
Odom thanked WSU coach Mike Leach and Grinch in a tweet on Friday morning.