Caleb Odom walked into Tuesday’s media session four days removed from the loudest night Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has ever had, and the first question was about how you put that down and pick up a road game.
His answer was that the staff never gives them the option.
“I think it’s easy for us. I think that PG and the coaching staff does a great job of just really making sure that once Sunday comes and we watch that film and we do the walkthroughs, do the corrections, that everything else from now on, we’re flipping that page,” Odom said. “We’re looking straight ahead. So I think for us and this team, we’ve been preached to just move forward and keep looking forward ahead.”
What he sees on Florida’s defense
Odom has had the tape for two days now, and the thing he led with was not a coverage. It was the pass rush.
“Very unique defense. They play a lot of one high where there’s three, stuff like that, rotate a lot,” he said. “But I know that looking on the film, they got a good linebacker core for sure. They got some guys coming off the edge. I think they’re like fourth in the nation in sacks. So it’s going to be important for us to just hone in on that and really just, any extra protection chips and stuff like that, we got to be perfect with that.”
That is a tight end describing his own job on Saturday. Chips and extra protection are what a tight end does when the edge is a problem, and Odom named it as the detail that has to be perfect.
The plan for the noise
Ole Miss spent Saturday night watching LSU struggle with a record crowd. This week the script flips, and Odom was asked what you actually do about it.
“We got crowd noise on in the practice right now,” he said. “So I think it’s just about not letting it get to us, taking it play by play for sure. If we have a negative play, we can’t let it affect us, because that’s when those plays start stacking on top of each other. Those may be a two-yard loss, incomplete pass, and they get louder and louder and louder and louder.”
His fix is pace.
“Just seeing the signals, getting lined up fast, playing really fast, trying to use a lot of tempo, use what we’re used to, to get them off kind of. Doing stuff like that, I feel like that will help us be able to limit the crowd noise.”
It is worth sitting with the logic, because it is the clearest thing anyone from this offense has said about the environment. Odom is not describing a crowd that beats you on one play. He is describing a crowd that compounds — a two-yard loss, then an incomplete pass, then a stadium that has gotten louder twice — and the counter is to move fast enough that the noise never gets a second and third chance to build.
He is glad he moved to tight end
Odom came to Ole Miss as a big receiver. He is playing tight end now, and three games into the season he was asked whether he is glad about it.
“Yeah, I’m definitely glad,” he said. “I think that it’s definitely been something that’s been beneficial for me, just putting myself in a position where I always knew I could run routes and stuff — not being cocky or anything, but I always knew I could do stuff like that. But putting on that weight, getting in the line of scrimmage and starting to block those bigger guys, understanding technique and stuff like that, it’s really helped me and made me be more versatile.”
The payoff, in his telling, is that he is no longer one thing.
“People can look at me not just as a big wide receiver who may or may not get open. They can put me anywhere on the field and I can block like an O-lineman, a tight end, stuff like that. So it’s definitely been something that I love.”
Asked what it is about John David Baker’s system that has let him produce, Odom gave the system some credit and then took some himself.
“I ultimately think that his system is obviously maybe a little bit more catered to the tight ends. Maybe we do get a little bit more looks than we did last year,” he said. “But I also just think it has to go with really playing that tight end role. I feel like I’m way more comfortable in it. So it’s allowed me to really just be able to play better and play more confidently, play more efficiently and stuff like that — which have given me better results.”
On the shirt
Odom did the session in a shirt somebody in the room wanted explained.
“We get them in Sunday meetings, in the unit meetings,” he said. “So if you have a pretty good game, you get one. But there’s a couple of guys that get them every week.”
Asked whether it is a skill-position thing, he shut that down immediately: “Nah, anybody. Anybody. O-linemen, running backs, quarterbacks. Anybody.”
What it adds up to
There was no bravado in any of it. Odom was asked about an emotional win and talked about walkthroughs. He was asked about a hostile stadium and talked about signals and pace. He was asked about his own breakout and spent most of the answer on blocking technique.
Florida gets after the quarterback and the Swamp gets loud. Ole Miss’s tight end has a chip assignment and a tempo plan, and he has been practicing both with the speakers on.
Photo: Ole Miss tight end Caleb Odom stiff-arms LSU safety Tamarcus Cooley, September 19, 2026, at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Mandatory Credit: The Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY Network via Reuters.
Ole Miss is 3-0, 1-0 in the SEC. Next up: at Florida, Saturday, September 26, 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Hotty Toddy 🦈