New UNLV football coach Barry Odom lays out blueprint

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022 | 1:02 p.m.

New UNLV football coach Barry Odom is ready to hit the ground running.

At his introductory press conference on Wednesday, Odom set forth his vision for the program, and with the transfer portal already looming over the offseason he is going to have to put his plan in motion immediately.

Odom, 46, is fine with an accelerated timeline. He demonstrated that by calling UNLV athletic director Erick Harper as soon as the job came open to throw his hat in the ring, and now he’s tasked with turning the Scarlet and Gray into a winner as soon as possible.

Not rebuilding

The last time UNLV hired a new coach, they went from four wins the previous season to zero wins in Marcus Arroyo’s disastrous first year at the helm.

Odom said he doesn’t expect the program to have to take a step backward in 2023 in the name of “rebuilding.”

“I feel the urgency to win and win now,” Odom said. “Every year is a rebuild of a team. That doesn’t mean it’s a rebuild and not have success. My goal is to take this team and go win and win immediately.”

Coming off a 5-7 campaign, it seems reasonable to hold UNLV to a bowl standard next year. A postseason push will have to start with retaining key players on the current roster, and Odom is already working on that.

In a team meeting on Tuesday afternoon, Odom implored the entire roster to resist the temptation of the transfer portal and stay at UNLV.

“I need them all to stay,” Odom said of the current roster. “I firmly believe in building the team around the team that we currently have. That’s my goal and my No. 1 focus with this group.”

Starting wide receiver Kyle Williams and starting cornerback Nohl Williams have put their names in the portal, but other key players have re-committed to Odom, so that’s a good start.

Brumfield staying

The first big domino to fall in Odom’s favor was starting quarterback Doug Brumfield, who attended the press conference and said he intends to remain at UNLV.

Brumfield said he met individually with Odom, and that the coach convinced him he’ll continue to play a key role going forward.

“He wants me to be a leader on the team and be that guy,” Brumfield said. “He really honed in on how most of his successful teams were led by a successful quarterback, so it’s going to be a quarterback-driven team.”

Brumfield enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2022, completing 64.6% of his passes while tossing 10 touchdowns and five interceptions. He will be a senior next year, but still has a redshirt year and a Covid year if he wants to extend his eligibility.

Brumfield said Odom’s message resonated with other players as well. Freshman offensive lineman Noah McKinney entered the transfer portal, but Brumfield said he had also decided to stay.

Could Kyle Williams and Nohl Williams be persuaded to stick around, too?

“I feel like we’re going to get a few guys back out of the portal and we’re going to be good,” Brumfield said.

Defensive mentality

Odom played linebacker at Missouri and is a defensive coach, so expect the Scarlet and Gray to mold a defense in his image.

That means tailoring the team to match up with some of the high-powered passing attacks around the Mountain West.

Odom’s goal is to infuse the roster with athleticism and increase the overall talent level on defense.

“In the world of college football now, the way the game is spread out, you’ve got to have great athletes on defense,” Odom said.

Once that has been accomplished, it will fall on Odom and his staff to coach up the players in a way that minimizes the mistakes that led to too many long gains for opponents in recent years.

“It doesn’t matter what zone blitz I can draw up from the boundary if I’m not a teacher that can get our guys to grasp that,” Odom said. “So we’ve got to, No. 1, identify the skill set of our roster, make sure we’ve got players in position that we teach them and prepare them well enough throughout the week that they can go out and execute the game plan at a high level.”

As to the staff who will be implementing those coaching points, Odom said he has already received nearly 700 text messages from would-be assistants inquiring about UNLV, and that finalizing his hires is a top priority.

Grown locally

One of the biggest miscalculations of the Arroyo regime was cutting out local high schools, a move that needlessly turned a lot of influential football people against him in Las Vegas.

Odom wants to set a different tone. He said that while the transfer portal is a necessary part of team-building now, he envisions high-school recruiting as the foundation of the program.

“There’s got to be such a strategic force in recruiting high school athletes, because right now that’s getting lost a little bit,” Odom said. “So there’s a great focus on getting high school kids in the program. You’re able to develop them, grow them and make sure that they understand they continue to build the culture of your team.”

That will mean getting out across the valley and rebuilding relationships with a lot of coaches who got burned by Arroyo and his staff.

If Odom is able to repair that recruiting pipeline, he believes local talent can sustain UNLV.

“It’s my job to make sure that we get the best players in the city of Las Vegas to stay home,” he said. “I’ve got to make sure the connectiveness I have with the high school coaches, the openness to get them to practices, to understand the involvement I want to have with their programs, is so hugely important because we will thrive because of local kids. It will be my charge, along with my staff’s, to understand this can be their team.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.