Friends, I must admit something: as most online writers are wont to do, I don’t really look at the comments on anything I write.
But sometimes I do!
Back on February 10th I posted a comparison of Missouri’s three football head coaches of the millennium and their records in certain situations. It was fun. It was educational? It was good talk.
And in the spirit of “fun” and “good talk”, I did something that I rarely do and ventured into the comments to read what people thought.
It was there that I saw
this comment from thejessebishop, specifically the highlighted part:
As the elder Gen Z’ers say: “bet”.
Thanks to the inspiration/request of Jesse, let’s run the exercise back except, this time, we’re only sampling the first four years of each coach’s tenure.
Also known as “Barry Odom’s entire tenure”.
To the numbers!
Overall
- Eli Drinkwitz – 28-21 (57.1%)
- Barry Odom – 25-25 (50.0%)
- Gary Pinkel – 22-25 (46.8%)
Eli hit 11 wins in Year Four. That was enough to put him comfortably in the lead here. And of course Barry being over Gary will bring out the “Pinkel had to rebuild this thing from scratch! Odom steered a perfectly nice car into a ditch!” arguments that are countered with the “Mizzou was toxic in 2015 and no one wanted the job! Odom did the best he could with less support than any of the other two!” point. We’ve done this all before, no use rehashing it again.
Conference
- Drinkwitz – 17-17 (50.0%)
- Odom – 13-19 (40.6%)
- Pinkel – 12-20 (37.5%)
Again, the fact that Drink’s big breakthrough happened in Year Four is a huge boon to this exercise. If he had gone 6-7 (3-5) again he would have been, essentially, right where Odom was after four years.
Then again, the COVID ‘20 season was such a nonsense exercise that it’s hard to really count anything that happened in it as indicative of anything. But, still, that’s not the point here. Onwards!
At Home
- Drinkwitz – 20-7 (74.1%)
- Odom – 18-10 (64.3%)
- Pinkel – 14-10 (58.3%)
Did anyone else forget that Pinkel went undefeated at home during the 2003 season? I know I did. Obviously you remember the win over #10 Nebraska, but the other five games of the ‘03 home slate were Eastern Illinois, Middle Tennessee (in overtime…seriously let’s never play those guys ever again), Texas Tech (aka THAT Brad Smith game), Texas A&M, and Iowa State. Granted, the only home opponents ranked better than 70th in SP+ were Nebraska (27th) and Tech (30th) but, hey, undefeated at home is undefeated at home.
On The Road
- Odom – 7-13 (35.0%)
- Drinkwitz – 6-12 (33.3%)
- Pinkel – 6-14 (30.0%)
Yes, I double checked the numbers on this one. No, I didn’t think it would line up this way. Drink definitely is getting a scheduling assist by coaching in the era where power teams play more home games than road games, as opposed to Pinkel and Odom’s tenures where it was more likely to be 6 home/6 road.
Against Ranked Teams (at the time)
- Drinkwitz – 6-11 (35.3%)
- Odom – 1-9 (10.0%)
- Pinkel – 1-11 (8.3%)
Drinkwitz has played and won more ranked teams in his first four seasons than Pinkel or Odom. Thanks SEC.
Also, it’s worth pointing out: Drinkwitz has seven total wins over teams that were ranked at the time, and six came in the first four years of his tenure.
Against Teams Ranked Higher in SP+
- Drinkwitz – 8-17 (32.0%)
- Pinkel – 5-21 (19.2%)
- Odom – 2-13 (13.3%)
Much like the metric above, Eli has won 9 games over teams ranked higher in end-of-year SP+ and 8 came in the first four years.
However, I want to point out that he has had fewer matchups against higher ranked teams than Pinkel did in the first four, meaning his teams were more likely to be better than their opponents when compared to Pinkel’s boys. “Drink’s teams are usually better than their opponents” is the take that I’m going to hold on to here, especially since Missouri is no longer in the XII.
Against Teams Ranked Lower in SP+
- Drinkwitz – 18-4 (81.8%)
- Pinkel – 15-4 (78.9%)
- Odom – 19-12 (61.3%)
…and when you consistently field teams better than your opponents, and beat those opponents routinely, well, that’s how you get to have infinite job security and statue-talk starts whipping up.
Also. Barry. Dude. This record isn’t the reason he got fired, but it’s certainly a reason to not get into a shouting match with your boss about giving you an extension.
The dude had four more losses to inferior opponents than Pinkel and Drinkwitz combined and played the most “inferior in SP+” teams in that first four year span!
Against Teams with Winning Records
- Drinkwitz – 12-16 (42.9%)
- Pinkel – 4-17 (19.0%)
- Odom – 5-23 (17.9%)
We all look back fondly on the Gary Pinkel era, mainly because we remember 2007 forward. But, man, those first four years were rough.
Against Teams with Losing Records
- Odom – 19-2 (90.5%)
- Drinkwitz – 15-4 (78.9%)
- Pinkel – 16-5 (76.2%)
Eli Drinkwitz has not lost to a team that finished the season with a losing record since October 8th, 2022.
Against P4 Opponents
- Drinkwitz – 20-20 (50.0%)
- Odom – 15-23 (39.5%)
- Pinkel – 14-22 (38.9%)
Having a 10-game conference schedule in ‘20 helps boost the Power opponent number for Drinkwitz here, but he’s also winning at a better clip in the first four years than the other two guys did.
Against G6 (or whatever we’re calling them now) Opponents
- Drinkwitz – 6-1 (85.7%)
- Odom – 6-2 (75.0%)
- Pinkel – 6-3 (66.7%)
Strong showing for everyone here. I’m sure Drink is still haunted by option-offense Army THROWING THE BALL IN A TWO MINUTE DRILL to beat him in ‘21. What a silly bowl game that was.
Against Rivals
- Drinkwitz – 7-1 (87.5%)
- Odom – 5-3 (62.5%)
- Pinkel – 7-10 (41.2%)
Pinkel had grander access to traditional rivals than either Odom or Drinkwitz had, which is more of a shame in the commentary of where the sport is right now than anything pertaining to these dudes directly.
In One-Score Games
- Drinkwitz – 9-7 (56.3%)
- Pinkel – 7-8 (46.7%)
- Odom – 4-9 (30.8%)
Yeah, that feels right.
After a Bye Week
- Drinkwitz – 4-1 (80.0%)
- Pinkel – 3-4 (42.9%)
- Odom – 1-4 (20.0%)
Sigh. I do miss our naïve days of “DRINK CAN’T BE BEAT AFTER A BYE WEEK!”. I also miss Vanderbilt being bad at football.
Against SP+ Top 10
- Odom – 1-7 (12.5%)
- Drinkwitz – 1-10 (9.1%)
- Pinkel – 0-8 (0.0%)
Not much to say here. It’s hard to beat SP+ Top 10 teams, especially when you’re trying to build your team.
Against SP+ Top 11-25
- Drinkwitz – 5-3 (62.5%)
- Pinkel – 0-4 (0.0%)
- Odom – 0-5 (0.0%)
When we all hoped that Odom’s run would be an extension of Pinkel’s tenure, I don’t think we meant it like this. In other news: the SEC has more elite teams and Drinkwitz was better at beating them in the first four years. And two of them even happened before the breakout ‘23 season!
Against SP+ Top 26-50
- Odom – 7-7 (50.0%)
- Drinkwitz – 3-4 (42.9%)
- Pinkel – 4-7 (36.4%)
Good on Odom for playing way more of these games than the other two guys and bravely going .500 against that slate.
Against SP+ Top 51-75
- Odom – 7-3 (70.0%)
- Drinkwitz – 6-4 (60.0%)
- Pinkel – 7-5 (58.3%)
All three took their lumps but feature winning records here. As they should.
Against SP+ Top 76-100
- Drinkwitz – 4-0 (100.0%)
- Pinkel – 6-1 (85.7%)
- Odom – 3-2 (60.0%)
Pinkel’s only loss in the first four years against this batch was in Year One. Odom’s two were in Year One. Drink didn’t have it happen in his first four years.
Against SP+ 100+
- Drinkwitz – 6-0 (100.0%)
- Pinkel – 4-0 (100.0%)
- Odom – 3-1 (75.0%)
Barry. C’mon, man.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Each coach’s situational records in the first four years. Hope you enjoy this one, too!
Thanks for the input, Jesse.
And thanks to everyone that reads this stuff and comments. If story ideas keep popping up in the comment section I might have to visit it more often.
