Graney: Can UNLV keep Barry Odom in Las Vegas?
UNLV should do whatever necessary to keep Barry Odom as its football coach.
It’s the “whatever necessary” part that sometimes becomes tough to navigate.
People will call. Schools from Power Four conferences will be interested in Odom. You don’t accomplish what he has in two years — creating one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history — and not expect others to have noticed. Mostly others with deep pockets.
The Rebels will play Friday at Boise State in the Mountain West championship game with a potential berth in the College Football Playoff in line for the winner.
UNLV has won 10 games for the first time in 40 years. It has won 19 under Odom in two seasons. This, a program that hadn’t been bowl eligible in consecutive seasons until now and was a perennial loser over almost four decades.
We’re talking an average of 3.7 wins bad.
What Odom has done is remarkable.
Harper’s charge
Erick Harper is the athletic director who hired Odom and might soon be in position to try to keep him. It’s part of the business when you have a coach who has generated so much success in such a short time. Part of the job. Nature of the beast.
So how does Harper succeed at such a feat?
“You have to continuously show support, not only from the institution and athletic department, but it has to be from the community as well,” Harper said. “It has to show the love.
“Is somebody going to call? I don’t know. But you have to have everybody’s support. (Odom) calls Las Vegas ‘our town, our team.’ It’s important for a coach who wants to be here to feel the love and respect and admiration.”
Odom’s base salary is $1.75 million. He signed an extension in April that runs through the 2028 season and includes retention bonuses if he remains at the university.
But you can bet your last Power Four cent that any offer from a major conference will come with a lot more zeros attached. And anyone in such a position at least listens.
Winning means ticket sales rise. Donations rise. And it’s important that Harper, who knows this well, remains in constant contact with Odom about what his program needs most to remain at this level and even reach beyond it.
Odom knows Power Four funding well, having been the coach at Missouri from 2016 to 2019. But great coaches also know winning is as much about the staff you hire and players you recruit and support system you generate as your own perks. It’s also about a world now of name, image and likeness dollars.
Harper understands this as well as anyone else. And any package UNLV might have to deliver to Odom — beyond the obvious financial incentives — would likely need to address all of the above.
These are the things most important to Odom.
“You want the opportunity to provide the team with assistant coaches you need to run the program the way you want it run,” he said. “The opportunity for guys to do everything structurally to play championship football. There are so many different levels that go into (running a program). I also believe you create those things. That’s certainly what we want to do here.”
Winning helps
Look. It has to help that he has proven UNLV can win at this rate. That you can actually get things done in Las Vegas. That you can be in the CFP conversation. It’s not just a dream anymore. It’s reality.
I suppose this is what you want. A coach others desire. Someone who has won to the level programs across the country are paying close attention to. It means he has increased the opinion about your team exponentially.
It means you’re no longer averaging 3.7 wins a season.
“Absolutely, I think (Odom) is happy here,” Harper said. “The fan base at Allegiant Stadium this year has been phenomenal. Can we get better? Absolutely. But he enjoys Las Vegas. He enjoys the city. And his team has the opportunity to play in a $2 billion stadium and work in a $35 million practice facility on campus. There’s no one else who can say that.
Oh, yeah …
“And the food here in Las Vegas is phenomenal.”
Hey, whatever makes any potential package a sweeter deal.
Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.