Following Mizzou football's 51-14 win over Tennessee-Martin Saturday, Sept. 1, head coach Barry Odom talked about his team's effort and overall success during the game as well as the preparation for the game this Saturday, Sept. 8, against Wyoming.

"We have a lot of room for improvement in all areas, but I'm excited about some of the things our newcomers did and about the process of playing complete football on both sides of the ball and come away with a plus-one in the turnover margin," Odom said. "To have 82 snaps on offense and not have a turnover, that's a good mark to build on and defensively we came away with one. All in all it was a good first win for us."

Odom also talked about the number of the players the team was able to field during the game against Tennessee-Martin.

"We wanted to get to that point in last year's game against Idaho, but didn't get to there because of the redshirt rule," Odom explained. "We played about everybody pretty close to what we could the other day."

Odom added, "We wanted to come out offensively in the second half and drive once and see how that ended up and then kind of wholesale change it and get everybody else in there. It was good experience for them, also a learning experience for how many steps forward they need to continue to take to play winning football."

Mizzou RS-sophomore DL Jordan Elliot and freshman DB Terry Petry were two players that saw the field Saturday and received praise from Odom.

"Petry has matured a lot. Just the mental part of being able to prepare, I mean, for him because he does have a really high level skill set. He does have exceptional change of direction, short area quickness and speed."

"Jordan showed some things that tend to make me believe that he's got a good chance to be a really good player for us this year. He understands the work he needs to put in against the competition here in the next week and on down the road."

Odom added that preparation for Saturday's game against Wyoming started "pretty quick on Saturday night" following the team's victory. Wyoming has already played two games and enters Saturday with a record of 1-1.

"If you look at the way [Wyoming] plays defensively, they're assignment sound, they play with a lot of confidence in each other, and they've got most everybody back from last year's team," Odom said. "They tackle really well, they're aggressive in their coverages, but also understand where they need be every snap. You don't see a lot of guys running uncovered or many missed assignments."

While Wyoming's defense was one of the best last season as far as forcing turnovers, Odom wants his team to be prepared for the Wyoming offense that he says can "do just enough to keep you off balance."

"They want to run the ball, there's no confusion about that and I think they've got a couple good [running] backs that have the ability to do that up front," Odom continued. "The quarterback has some skill. He looks like to me he's good on the move throwing the ball, and the delayed play action game has been good for them."

Odom added, "For any second you relax just a little bit, they've got two guys on the outside that can get behind you pretty quickly, so we need to be assignment sound, we need to stop the run then we need to be sure we got our eyes on our spot and take care of the business on the back end."

Mizzou football takes on the Wyoming Cowboys this Saturday, Sept. 8, at 6:00pm at Memorial Stadium.