COLUMBIA - Barry Odom was a little thrown off by Cale Garrett's answer.
During a linebackers meeting earlier this season, Missouri's head coach asked each of the linebackers who their role model is. Some said athletes like LeBron James; Garrett, however, went a little more off the script.
"We get to Cale, and he said (Missouri linebacker) Michael Scherer," Odom said. "And he's dead serious. That's pretty cool, and that's a good guy to look up to."
Garrett looked up to Scherer while Garrett was at Kearney High School, watching Scherer make tackles and win games with the Tigers. It would seem fitting then that the true freshman appears to be Scherer's heir at middle linebacker.
Scherer's Missouri career was abruptly cut short against Middle Tennessee State on Oct. 22 when the senior tore his ACL in the first half and Garrett filled in as his replacement. Garrett is seventh on the team with tackles with 37, four of them for loss. His play has already drawn comparisons to Scherer: A smart, tough linebacker who uses instincts to make up for not being the biggest or fastest player.
Odom was asked if he sees himself when he was a linebacker at Missouri in the 1990s in Garrett. He sees a better version.
"He's bigger, he's better looking, meaner, tougher, faster, all that stuff," Odom said of Garrett. "He's a good kid."
Despite the praise Odom and his teammates boast about him, Garrett did not originally commit Missouri.
Garrett was a Missouri fan for as long as he remembered, but Missouri did not originally get heavily involved in the recruiting him. Instead, the three-star recruit committed to Navy about a month before he and the Bulldogs won the Missouri Class 4 state championship last November.
Wide receivers coach Andy Hill, who had been in touch with Garrett through the recruiting process, talked with Odom about who Missouri could add as last-minute signings just days before National Signing Day on Feb. 3.
"We were looking at our numbers and Coach Odom said, 'What about Cale Garrett up in Kearney, you been in contact?'" Hill recalled Odom asking him. "And I said, 'really I haven't been in contact,' so I called his coach and kind of felt it out."
Kearney coach Greg Jones put the word out to Garrett and his family Missouri was interested in signing him. Hill said Garrett's mom was actually mad at him at first because he said she was thinking her son should have gotten the call to play for Missouri sooner.
Still, Garrett made a late-January visit to Columbia.
"His mom wasn't really happy to see me, but I was happy to see her," Hill said of the visit. "But it's worked out for the best."
Garrett committed to play at Missouri on Jan. 30, and signed four days later. Just a few months later he was backing up the man he idolized in high school.
"Scherer's definitely a role model and big brother," Garrett said. "Just his ability to read the game and how he lives his life on and off the field.
"I see him with Coach Odom's sons sometimes and they'll run up to him and give him a big hug or a handshake, that's the kind of guy I want to be like. He's a real good football player but off the field people want to be around him and I think that's really cool, not just because of his football success either."
Yet a curveball was thrown Garrett's way just as he was about to make his first start on Missouri's game against Kentucky.
Odom took over play-calling from defensive coordinator DeMontie Cross and began re-implementing the scheme he ran when he served as defensive coordinator the previous season. After spending months of learning Cross' defense, Garrett had to learn a new defense almost on the fly.
Making matters more complicated, Garrett was ejected the first play the following week at South Carolina for a head-to-head targeting penalty on Gamecocks quarterback Jake Bentley. Garrett said he at least learned to let up sooner when he sees a sliding quarterback.
"The South Carolina game hurt him a lot being in there one snap, that really hurt him because really last week was like his second game all over again," Cross said "So we're counting on him to get in a few plays and be put into a situation where he can make some calls, checks and really make some really big time plays I think he's capable of making."
Garrett still assumes much of Scherer's old responsibilities as calling plays and audibles on the field. He's had his moments where he has made the wrong call or missed an assignment. Still, he has locked down a spot as a key part of Missouri's defense moving forward.
Not bad for a season where Garrett admitted he did not set any expectations, and instead opted to just give it his all every day and see from there. He knew that mentality would take him where he wanted to go, and that's as a starting linebacker for the team he grew up a fan of.
"You can think something's going to be one way but when you get here and it's actually different," Garrett said of playing for Missouri, "and all the work that's been put into it I think it's been a lot more rewarding for me, too."