The point of conference media days is to create news out of thin air, not to respond to news hour after it breaks.
Unfortunately for him, Barry Odom's first trip to Hoover unfolded entirely different as he imagined, standing in a ballroom full of cameras and recorders shortly after word broke that his athletics director, Mack Rhoades, had left for the same gig at Baylor.
For his part, Odom, who admitted to not being the easiest coach to cover, handled the situation well.
As for the rest of his job? There is the team that fell from back-to-back SEC East championships to a 1-7 conference record amid an outbreak of campus unrest that he must lead back to the postseason.
When you add the previous paragraphs together, there aren't many first-year coaches with more work cut out for them than Odom.
Tweets from Odom's time at the podium: