Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

With its investment in Odom, UNLV looks to get across the finish line in football

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Steve Marcus

Barry Odom, new UNLV head football coach, responds to a question during a news conference at UNLV Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022. Odom, 46, served as the defensive coordinator at Arkansas for the past three years and was the head coach at Missouri from 2016-19.

Barry Odom in 2027 is scheduled to make $2.25 million to coach the UNLV football team in the final year of his five-year contract with the university.

UNLV Football Coach Barry Odom

Barry Odom, center, new UNLV head football coach, poses with UNLV Athletic Director Erik Harper, left, and UNLV President Keith Whitfield during a news conference at UNLV Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022. Odom, 46, served as the defensive coordinator at Arkansas for the past three years and was the head coach at Missouri from 2016-19. Launch slideshow »

Yes, UNLV is investing in the program — that’s all you need to know about the Rebels’ new coach.

The hiring of Odom this week is refreshing because it’s a coach with a proven track record against top competition. Tony Sanchez and Marcus Arroyo, the two most recent UNLV coaches, were up-and-comers in the industry who earned a chance to lead a program but ultimately couldn’t reach the simple standard of winning six games to qualify for a postseason bowl-game appearance.

And to get someone of Odom’s pedigree — four years as a head coach in the Southeastern Conference at Missouri and successful stints at multiple stops as a defensive coordinator — UNLV had to pay for it. The top priority in replacing Arroyo, who was fired last month after seven wins in three seasons, was getting an upgrade in all facets of running a program. That’s Barry Odom.

Bravo, UNLV.

Odom, in his introductory news coverage on Wednesday, echoed what many locals have long said of UNLV, labeling the job “an elite opportunity.”

The hiring reaffirms that UNLV is serious about building a consistent winner on the football field, and more important, is taking significant action to get there. It’s one thing to say you want to win; it’s another to make the investment in doing so.

You can’t have a multimillion-dollar on-campus training facility and finish near the bottom of the Mountain West standings in all four years the facility has been operational. You can’t play in a $2 billion shared stadium with a NFL team and lose to Hawaii — a program that plays in a 9,300-seat stadium.

UNLV has just four all-time bowl appearances, the last coming in 2013. After that 7-6 season and spot in the Heart of Texas Bowl, Bobby Hauck received a three-year contract extension worth $425,000 annually. Sanchez followed with a five-year contract worth $3.5 million total.

Odom will be paid $1.75 million in his initial two seasons, $2 million in the third and fourth years, and $2.25 million in the last.

The strong $8 million investment, one that makes Odom the highest paid coach in the Mountain West, comes with a stronger risk.

UNLV still owes the recently fired Arroyo $2.3 million from the five-year, $1.5 million annual contract he received in late 2019. But the fact that UNLV didn’t hang onto a coach athletic department officials felt wasn’t the right fit for the university over a few million dollars speaks volumes to the urgency UNLV has to build a winner.

Time will tell if Odom was worth the investment, but his first impression on Wednesday showed the 46-year-old has the charisma and drive to flip UNLV’s fortunes. Coaches are masters in public speaking and it’s not hard to win the introductory press conference, but Odom’s confidence was refreshing.

He’s watched the program develop over the years, from when Sanchez convinced the university and its boosters to make the first significant investments in the team with the construction of the $35 million Fertitta Football Complex, to a 4-1 start to this season where the Rebels looked like Mountain West contenders.

Odom isn’t here to rebuild the program. He’s here to get it across the finish line.

“I feel the urgency to win and win now,” Odom said. “My goal is to take this team and go win and win immediately.”

Remember, being a great Mountain West program is only part of the mission. It’s about bringing big-time college football to a university located in the heart of a city with big-time sporting events — Super Bowl, Final Four, Formula One.

The college football landscape is constantly changing with conference realignment, and yet UNLV remains on the sideline in the Mountain West instead of moving to the Big 12 Conference like BYU, Houston, Central Florida or Cincinnati. There’s even space in the Pac-12 Conference, which loves the Las Vegas market and hosts its football and basketball championship here.

But first UNLV needs to regularly beat Hawaii, UNR and other schools piecing it together in the Mountain West. Frankly, UNLV needs to have a football team as accomplished as the city it represents.

UNLV just took the first step to get there by hiring a coach who took a SEC team, Missouri, to a pair of bowl games. The UNLV investment screams the obvious: The time to win is now.

Go ahead and get excited, because Odom sure is.

“I didn’t know what I was walking into today,” Odom said, “but the support and the way things are done and the plan shows that the vision is of championship level. And the vision of what we’re going to get accomplished is at a championship level every which way that you turn. There’s a plan and there’s organization. And when you have alignment in those areas, you will achieve great success, and it will be done in very short order.”