Purdue Football: How Do You Fix It?

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With the new year now officially in full swing and all of us back to regular schedules, it’s time to fire up the roundtable machine and ask the staff a question again. This week, I wanted to know how you can fix Purdue football, but I made them go deeper than just sending me the word MONEY in the biggest font they have available. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Ledman:

Putting aside money as I’ve forced myself to do, the best I can think of is to play smarter. What do I mean by that? Well, as of now Purdue doesn’t have the money to compete against the likes of the big SEC schools or Ohio State, Oregon, or *gulp* IU. So instead, we are gonna have to Moneyball their asses. Purdue is going to have to find value in other ways and see if it works. The A’s prioritized getting on base when they were building their team. What will Purdue’s version of that be? I honestly don’t know, but I don’t get paid millions of dollars either. Purdue seems to be changing they were they run the program with additional hires in front office capacities and so I hope this means Purdue is finding a way to work smarter.

Jed:

Purdue has, and likely will always need, a schtick on offense to be successful. That’s the biggest thing missing outside of saying better players and more money. They had that with Tiller, Brohm, and Young a those are arguably the most successful periods in Purdue’s history outside of Jack Mollenkopf.

I’m not sure Henson is that guy to bring innovative and unique aspects to the offense that gives Purdue an advantage. Odom had that with Brennan Marion and his ‘Go-Go Offense’ but he didn’t come to West Lafayette due to what many perceive as a major disagreement between the two.

Northwestern has apparently taken that angle very seriously with the hire of a widely regarded offensive guru in Chip Kelly as OC and a young QB coach with a blue-blood history in Jerry Neubeisel. Purdue seems to be falling further behind in more ways than simply saying that money is the root of the problem. It may just be poor hires in key areas like OC and DC (Kevin Kane is optically the worst hire across the country).

Travis:

The lines.

It is really that simple: Go hell bent on the offensive and defensive lines. That’s what Indiana has done and it has worked brilliantly. The best offensive lines can make even mediocre skill players look amazing. Amazing skill players are pretty much useless with a terrible offensive line. Purdue’s line play has been various levels of awful the last three years, and nothing will improve until that area does. 

Casey:

Purdue has to nail two out of three of these: qb spot, o line, or d line. It just hasn’t had the kind of signal caller that’s made a difference or the infrastructure to help a qb. That comes down to identifying talent and fit while putting a roster together. It has to reliably find diamonds in a rough that fit what it wants to do to bridge the talent gap Purdue is always going to have. 

Ryan:

At the moment, Purdue football is at an impasse because the program, in my humble opinion, does not spend and cannot enough money in the realm of football. Of course, Purdue is severely limited with its funding due to the structure of the athletics department and let’s be honest, Purdue football will never have the spending power that the big schools get. The second wrench in spending is NIL which Purdue figures to be underwhelming, especially compared to most Power 4 counterparts. Purdue is nationally known as a basketball school and alumni / NIL sponsors are far from chomping at the bit to dump money into a football program that has very little success this century. 

So we should all recognize a deadly loop: Purdue football needs to make a splash to get more spending power but it needs more spending power to make a splash. Now onto answering the question of how Purdue gets out of the basement and effectively breaks the deadly loop I described above. Of course, there is a nuclear option that Purdue certainly does not seem keen to explore. 3 times in the past 10 years, Purdue has ripped everything down to the studs and rebuilt. Things were built up nicely under Jeff Brohm but Jeff took the drywall with him to Louisville when he left. Then, the walls were built using twigs and gum under Ryan Walters and now they are being built again under Barry Odom. Could these walls be sturdy? Perhaps, but it certainly was a rocky start (perhaps because that gum was leftover and in the way). This all leads to the nuclear option of not just tearing down the walls but taking a wrecking ball to the entire house. Bring in a new AD that will navigate and excel in the current NCAA landscape as Purdue certainly could be doing much better in certain areas. Yes, I know it’s easier said than done, but it is still an option. The shorter-term answer is that Purdue will need McGyver this squad by building success despite a lack of traditional (or expensive) talent due to the inability to fund as elite programs do. It may sound cold but Barry Odom and his staff may need to start looking at players as commodities and they only have a certain budget to maintain. They currently don’t have the luxury of looking at it otherwise until something drastic changes. 

For now, there are 4 areas that need to be a priority because football common sense says so: Purdue needs to focus on the quarterback, offensive line, defensive line, and the secondary. Obviously, that’s a huge ask but if you stretch those four positions to their max, the team will likely go its furthest. Quarterback is obvious as it’s the most important position in sports. A quarterback could be throwing the ball to or handing it off to the best players on the planet but if the offensive line can’t hold up, it won’t matter. On the flip side, if the defensive line cannot generate some sort of pressure, no secondary can survive long term. And lastly, the secondary simply has to be a stopper against offensive attacks and it simply takes good players to make it work. Now, as I said before, Purdue doesn’t have the spending power as others and as it stands, they are the third most desirable program in the state of Indiana. That’s a really tough spot to be so Barry Odom and company absolutely have to excel at evaluating talent for something to change. A lot of it will have to be Purdue getting lucky but if the program is going to try going toe-to-toe in the Big Ten, it’s going to continue to be knocked on its ass. It’s time to think outside the box, get some guys with that dog in them and turn this train around. 

Drew:

Barry Odom needs to figure out what he wants to do, and do it. Last year’s team seemed like it wanted to be a little of everything. Purdue doesn’t have the type of talent. Odom won at UNLV because he could run the ball. The new transfer back out of Texas seems like he’s coming to run the ball. I’ll say this, I think I know what type of quarterback Ryan Browne is but I’m willing to at least entertain the idea that he can cut his turnovers in half with the help of the run game and be good (did that sound believable?)

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