Missouri closes spring camp with Black and Gold Game

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Barry Odom would like to have his players line up and play a game today in Missouri’s Black and Gold game (5 p.m., SEC Network). The only question: Does he have enough players?

“I don’t know if we’re going to be able to do it or not,” he said. “… I wish I had a great answer for you. I’ve got about five different scenarios and all of them have a traditional scoring system.”

That’s a change from last year, when Odom was the defensive coordinator under then-head coach Gary Pinkel.

“I couldn’t keep up with our last one, and I had the script in front of me,” Odom said. “There was a lot of arguing on the defensive side whether that scoring system was right or not. That’s a joke.”

As for Missouri’s offensive depth issues — well, that’s no joke.

The Tigers are down to eight available scholarship offensive linemen and three scholarship tailbacks.

Still, overall, Odom is happy with where the team is now compared to March 8 when camp began.

“It’s hard to explain, for me, in words the progress that we’ve made, really in all three phases,” he said. “I’m excited about the guys, the work that they’ve put in. I want to get beyond being excited about the work. Like I’ve said before, let’s not confuse that for being where we need to be yet.

“But in every position I would say today we look a lot better than we did Saturday, and that was a hell of a lot better than we looked three weeks ago. We’re making progress. I wish we had 29 more practices after Saturday, because we’ll need them, and we’ll need to do a great job finishing to put ourselves in position for June to be as good as it can be.”

Earlier in spring, Odom said he wanted to play “as close to a game as you could play” today.

“There’s some guys that haven’t played with the lights on that I want to see them in (a) scrimmage, yes, but I want to see them in an arena with people in the stands and the lights on,” he said. “I would love to do that.”

Odom expects to keep the first-team units on offense and defense as cohesive as possible. He expects to rotate quarterbacks on the first-team offense, though, and has yet to name a starter.

“I think it’s all three have done some really good things, and I’m excited to see those three guys in a game situation,” he said, referring to quarterbacks Drew Lock, Marvin Zanders and Jack Lowary. “And that’s as close as we can get on Saturday, so there’ll be some things, some learning experiences for all three of them that we’ll need to see with the right people around them.”

Though media access in general has been restricted in Odom’s first spring camp as head coach, today’s game will be televised on SEC Network.

“I would like if we could have an opportunity if we could showcase our guys a little bit with the spring game atmosphere,” he said. “I think it’s exciting if we have a crowd that can watch our team play. And I think the opportunity on the network that that’s going to be a positive for the University of Missouri.”