Inside the mind of Purdue football coach Barry Odom

Barry Odom is a man in motion. He looks at his watch. He checks his buzzing phone. Competition for his time and attention is fierce.

“What time do I get up?” says Odom, repeating a question. “The alarm usually goes off at 4:30 in the morning. And always to music.”

Odom sips his coffee. He’s trying to kick Diet Coke.

Breakfast? There’s no time. But Odom always says a prayer and reads from the Bible.

“I’m trying to read it in a year,” Odom says. “I’ll send both of my sons a scripture and what I thought of it. And I tell them I love them and to have a great day.”

Odom is out the door and whirls down the hall of the Kozuch Football Performance Complex. He has a meeting — he seemingly always has a meeting — in a tightly orchestrated daily schedule that leaves no room for fluff.

That blue-collar mindset was hatched during a meteoric rise through the coaching ranks that has him already working on his third head coaching job at only 48 years old.

Odom has been there and done that, working as a high school coach, grad assistant, director of recruiting, director of operations, assistant coach, and coordinator — not to mention his roles as a father, son, brother, husband, and friend.

His new label: Head Coach of Purdue Football.

“I just really think that the way Barry goes about his work, the way his staff will go about their work, the personality that our program will take on immediately will resonate with the type of young players and young guys that will ultimately lead us to success,” Purdue Executive Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Mike Bobinski says. “And that’s how we get it done here.”

Odom has work to do. He knows it. You know it. We all know it. There’s no sense in rehashing the details of the 2024 season. Odom won’t go there. His eyes are forward. And he likes what he sees — even if he doesn’t quite know what to expect from a roster chock-full of questions as the 2025 season dawns.

At the top of the queries: How will Odom blend a roster dotted with more than 80 newcomers?

“It’s exhilarating,” says Odom with a smile.

Covering his tracks

For a man to know where he is going, he has to know where he has been.

Barry Stephen Odom traces his roots to the dusty plains of Oklahoma, the second of Cheryl and Bob Odom’s three sons, each four years apart: Brad (Purdue’s director of recruiting), Barry, and Brian (inside linebackers coach at Washington).

“I look back now, the opportunities they provided for us were unbelievable,” Odom says. “We didn’t have any money. I didn’t know that. But we always had what we needed.”

Bob Odom worked in the oil industry until a recession led to his job loss, after which he became a teacher at an alternative school. Cheryl was an elementary school educator and principal.

“It was a very disciplined household, but it was also a loving household,” Odom says. “I knew my parents loved me, but you knew what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it, how you’re supposed to do it. There were no gray areas.”

Young Barry was precocious, always trying to keep up with his older brother Brad.

“There was always something going on at our house,” Brad Odom says. “We lived on a hill and had a lined 50-yard field we called ‘Odom Field.”

They played tackle football. (Did you really think they played touch?)

“Everyone played there,” Brad Odom says. “We played until it was dark or someone got hurt.”

On Sundays, the Odoms cleaned up and went to church. You could find the family at First Methodist Church. Mom played the piano and organ. The Odoms always — always — sat in the third pew from the front on the right-hand side of the church.

While his parents taught him right from wrong, and the church had its set of lessons, Barry still veered off course at times.

“I got in lots of trouble, but not nearly as much trouble as my older brother,” Odom says. “So, I learned from him how close to that line you could get, but not to touch that line.”

Odom came of age in tiny Maysville, Oklahoma. You have to squint to see it on a map. The family moved to nearby Ada — an hour east on Highway 19 — for his senior year of high school.

“It was a bigger school, more opportunities,” Odom says.

By the time Odom hit Ada — a town of 16,000 located 51 miles southeast of Oklahoma City — he was a known commodity across the state. Odom was a hard-hitting linebacker and rugged running back with exceptional speed, which allowed him to double as a track star who competed across the nation.

“Barry could run a legit 4.4 (40-yard dash),” Brad Odom says.

Rival high schools, Ardmore or McAlester, had no chance vs. Odom and Ada High in 1994 during a dominating run on the gridiron that resonates among locals today.

“Undefeated against them, in case anybody’s wondering,” Odom says. “State champs, too.”

When he wasn’t beating Ardmore or McAlester, Odom was dreaming of beating Nebraska and Texas as a member of the Oklahoma Sooners. Odom loved Barry Switzer’s Sooners. Every kid in the state who buckled a chinstrap and played on Friday nights did.

“Brian Bosworth was my guy,” Odom says.

He even had the Boz’s signature Mohawk-style haircut.

“Absolutely,” Odom says. “I know it’s hard to believe now.”

Odom raises his hat to show a mostly bald head.

Timing is everything in football recruiting, and with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State being in coaching transitions, neither wanted Odom. Arkansas became a top option, but the Hogs passed as Odom was coming off a knee injury in his senior season.

That left Missouri, which would take him as is. And it was a prescient choice that changed Odom’s football and personal life forever.

The way that returnees have come back and worked, the additions that we’ve made to our team, the opportunity is there for us to create momentum early on.

head coach barry odom on the 2025 Boilermakers, who lead the FBS with 54 incoming transfers

Romance in Columbia

Credit a former Missouri teammate with sparking the romance between Barry and his now-wife, Tia.

Tiger defensive tackle Jeff Marriott — who also lived with Odom — had a class with Tia Trump as a freshman. Odom noticed the two together once and asked to be introduced.

“She eventually decided to go on a date with me,” Odom says. “Took a while.”

The first date?

“There was a mall in Columbia, and attached to the mall was a movie theater, and then close by was a Chili’s. It was perfect,” Odom says. “We went on Thursday night because it was $1 night. We saw ‘Dante’s Peak.'”

Odom and Tia have been together ever since, raising three children: JT, a student at Purdue, Garyt, a freshman quarterback for the Boilermakers, and Anna Lockwood, who is entering the fifth grade.

Home is Odom’s getaway.

“He has to be super organized running a football program, something as big as that,” Tia says. “But at home, when he’s here, he’s here.”

An escape from football for Odom: cooking.

“It began with smoking meat,” says Tia. “And I got him a Big Green Egg smoker. He likes that. He likes cooking outside.

“And he loves a good crayfish boil.”

While cooking, Odom may listen to music. It could be classic rock, or country, old or new.

“He likes Chris Stapleton, Joe Purdy, Jamey Johnson,” says Tia.

Tia Odom can appreciate it. She grew up in Kahoka, a small town in northeast Missouri.

“I am fortunate in many ways,” Barry Odom says. “One of them is because our kids are healthy and happy, and I’ll never lose sight of that.”

Hard, smart and tough

A thin smile creases Barry Odom’s face as he discusses his past. He’s a wedge of man who still looks capable of stuffing a running back in the A-gap on 4th-and-1.

Odom often did that as a powder keg linebacker at Missouri from 1996-99. He always says he’s six feet tall.

“Get a driver’s license, I’d say I’m six feet tall,” says Odom, trying to extinguish any doubt.

He’s not six feet tall. But Odom compensates with cast-in-fire will. He’s the epitome of an underdog. Just ask him.

“Every day of my life, I’ve taken that approach,” he says.

The late Larry Smith and Gary Pinkel both saw it. The two Mizzou head football coaches helped forge Odom’s life on and off the field. What you see today is mainly because of Smith and Pinkel.

It was Pinkel who gave Odom his breakthrough in college coaching in 2003 as a graduate assistant for the Tigers. And it was Smith who signed Odom to play at Missouri in 1996.

Odom is hard-wired with Pinkel and Smith. Each was forged in a bygone, black-and-white era. Each was proudly old-school and uncompromising in their beliefs.

Hard work gets the job done. But there is also a loving touch, too. Odom cares.

“Players will respect him, and he’s very sincere about how he takes care of all his players … meaning he’s like a father figure,” Pinkel says. “That’s the way he is. That’s his personality.”

And then there is the grind of the profession. Odom loves the grind he learned from Smith and Pinkel, the endless hours, long days.

The Odom way can be summed up succinctly: hard, smart and tough. It’s the mantra he brands on anyone who crosses his path.

Smith and Pinkel formed the man now prowling the Purdue sideline. This is the same too-short-for-the-Big 12, thick-necked, barrel-chested linebacker who wrung every last tackle out of his football soul.

Odom has a legacy of helping Smith pull Mizzou to respectability after years of languishing. By the time Odom bit down on his mouthpiece for the last time, the Tigers were a two-time bowl team.

Smith took a chance on Odom, signing the Oklahoma roughneck and quickly moving him from running back to linebacker.

“I saw how Coach Smith changed the narrative of the program around the way he recruited and the toughness and discipline and consistency,” Odom says. “He was able to capture momentum in the locker room with a lot of like-minded guys that got it going.”

Pinkel? He’s the man who gave Odom a chance to work as a college coach.

“Gary Pinkel was as disciplined and as consistent as anybody that I’ve ever had a chance to be around,” Odom says. “If he came in and went to our staff meeting this morning, it would be exactly like his was …

“There’s a way, a structure, and if you’ll do it and you’ll live by it and you won’t cut corners, the process ends up taking over and winning. And that’s where I learned this.”

Stacking days

Barry Odom stares out the window of his office in the Kozuch Football Performance Complex. From where he sits, he has a good view of his other office: Ross-Ade Stadium.

He’s taken off the lid on his tenure as the Boilermakers’ 38th head coach. There is no remaining shell from the team that, just three scant seasons and two head coaches ago, played for the Big Ten championship. The roster? It’s been gutted, stripped down to the studs.

Can Odom — the only new coach in the Big Ten in 2025 — surpass pundits’ low expectations and reverse a losing tide that has seen Purdue produce just four winning records since Joe Tiller retired after the 2008 season?

“This team is completely different than anybody on the outside knows,” Odom says. “The way that returnees have come back and worked, the additions that we’ve made to our team, the opportunity is there for us to create momentum early on.”

Odom is just what this program needs, trying to move past the last two seasons. He personifies Purdue — a school whose reputation is rooted in working-class disciplines like engineering, agriculture and science.

Since his boots hit the ground in West Lafayette in December, Odom has been chirping about “stacking days.” Ask anyone walking the halls of Kozuch, strolling through Mollenkopf Athletic Center, hanging out in the weight room or walking through the Village on State Street.

“Day one, practice one, everybody’s going to be excited to go practice, go to meetings, and everybody’s gonna be attentive,” Odom says. “Can you capture that and do it day after day, day after day, consistently at the level we need to win?”

It’s all about putting in the work to get better one day at a time … every day.

It’s about stacking days.

“We’re ready,” Odom says.

Written by Tom Dienhart, who has covered football for GoldandBlack.com since 2019

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