Purdue Football Introduces Ryan Walters as Head Coach

Feature image from @Boilerfootball

Ryan Walters is Purdue’s guy, introduced as the next head football coach by Athletic Director Mike Bobinski, Board of Trustees Chairman Mike Berghoff, outgoing President Mitch Daniels, and President-Elect Mung Chiang.

Uh, who is Ryan Walters, again?

Letting others tell the story: Walters is competitive and brilliant. Focused. Disciplined, aggressive, and flexible to his personnel, who connects instantly with people as an “off-the-charts recruiter” who is “mature beyond his years”, according to Barry Odom. A “quietly confident”, “instant-impact” leader according to Bret Bielema, who thought he was going to lose him to a head coaching job in 2021. A rising star, according to every player or national media member or fanbase or coach or athletic director who ever crossed paths with him.

Walters started as the youngest full-time assistant coach at Arizona in 2011, continued as one of college football’s youngest defensive coordinators at Missouri and Illinois, and now the fourth-youngest head coach (and youngest black head coach) in FBS college football. A former 3-star dual-threat quarterback-turned-safety at Colorado, the Buffs reportedly had Walters as their backup option to Deion Sanders.

In short, Walters is a big bet that AD Mike Bobinski is taking on the midwest’s hottest available rising star of this young generation of coaches. Walters is a steady but confident coach who wasn’t shy to reflect on himself as “the best defensive coordinator in the country” and someone described by Illinois AD Josh Whitman to Bobinski as a “defensive savant”. It’s a bet that Purdue isn’t just a gunslinging, high-variance offense-first program - it can be a stable place where emerging stars can come to shine.

You know, we hope.

Coaching hires following bad breaks (typically after firings) are often described as the “opposite of your last”. This wasn’t a bad break, but it was the clear end of a chapter. Jeff Brohm was a successful, established, firey, 46-year-old easy-to-imagine fit as successor to the Purdue brand molded by Joe Tiller. In Walters, Purdue seems to have the flip side of that coin - a young, calm, understated but magnetic personality, schematically brilliant on the defensive side but unproven as a head coach. Bobinski is hoping that he has identified Walters as a dynamic program leader, focused on assembling and maximizing talented staff and players around a program philosophy, rather than relying on him primarily as a dynamic playcaller.

In college football’s new era of the emerging Power 2 (Big Ten and SEC), an expanded playoffs, constant dynamic recruiting calendars, and ever present transfer portals, programs like Purdue need someone who embraces these realities rather than complaining about “the old days” and shying away entirely from the new processes. Someone who can instantly connect with players and make Purdue stand out, as our inherent advantage of playing high-octane offense in the Big Ten West evaporates over the next few years. If Purdue couldn’t poach a sitting coach from a successful program outside of the Power 2 (coaches like Kalen DeBoer, Chris Klieman, Matt Campbell, Dave Clawson), taking a swing on a hot rising star and trusting the foundation build by Bobinski and Board of Trustees Chairman Mike Berghoff isn’t a bad bet to make.

But its the first bet of that type that Purdue has ever made, at a program that has never had consecutive successful head football coaches. So, we are left with hope.

The risk is obvious - Walters is a young and inexperienced program leader, and a defense-first guy now leading a program known for its history of offenses. Today, he spoke about actively vetting offensive coordinator and additional assistant coaches, and is obviously not coming with any previously-employed staff. At an offense-first program like Purdue, hiring and trusting an OC is vital. At a developmental program like Purdue, having a well-established Strength and Conditioning program might be the most important amongst his first wave of decisions. These are all clear risks with no track record as a program leader to reflect on - areas where we are left with hope.

While young, Walters doesn’t lack high-level experience - he brings six years as a universally-respected Power 5 Defensive Coordinator. His track record, as discussed in Walters’ Coaching Search capsule, is built around what he described as “organized chaos”, maximizing personnel, and a constant defensive improvement at Missouri and Illinois under Barry Odom, Eli Drinkwitz, and Bret Bielema. His defenses’ SP+ Defensive Rankings tell this story clearly:

• #85 in 2016 beginning as co-DC under Odom at Mizzou.

• #61 in 2017, when after a string of bad losses (including 35-3 against Purdue) Walters was given sole control of the defense midyear and Mizzou responded by rattling off 6-straight wins.

• #25 in 2018.

• #17 in 2019.

• #50 in 2020, a dip down during Drinkwitz’s first year after being one of the few staff holdovers between Mizzou coaches.

• #32 in 2021 as Illinois DC, after being a high-profile (paid $850,000 base) hire by Bielema, where they took Santa Lovie Smith’s #88-ranked defense in 2020.

• #3 in 2022.

The youthful hire is much closer to the recent trend than you’d imagine. Power 5-level programs with who hired very young head coaches with no or minimal HC experience include Mizzou (Drinkwitz, one year at App State), Oregon (Dan Lanning), Boston College (Jeff Hafley), Arizona State (Kenny Dillingham), Oregon State (Jonathan Smith), South Carolina (Shane Beamer), and of course Oklahoma (Lincoln Riley) and Notre Dame (our beloved Marcus Freeman).

We also have to talk about something that might make certain Purdue fans uncomfortable to acknowledge out loud - the opportunity to be identified as a “young, emerging savant and rising star” is so often closed to coaches of color. Take age out of it - among an already-lacking pool of diverse head active head coaches, this offseason six head coaches of color were fired, and (so far) only three were hired - Walters, Lance Taylor at Western Michigan, and Deion Sanders. (And I think we can remove Deion from that list, because there’s nobody on Earth that lives the same path as Deion.) The historical look at college football head coaching hires is fairly shameful as well. I’ve clearly outlined why Walters is a brilliant and qualified hire who was already a mainstay on every midwestern coaching shortlist. But from a fandom and university perspective, Purdue can be a beacon as a program willing to widen the candidacy pool, and willing to give a rising star like Walters a platform to showcase his emerging program-leading philosophies.

According to every report by the trusted Gold and Black Illustrated gentlemen, Walters has made instant connections with the existing Purdue football roster and 2023 commitments, and so far has kept Devin Mockobee, Brady Allen, Nic Caraway, Marcus Mbow, and Joe Strickland (and more) on-board as Purdue’s young core for this next chapter. He knows he has his work cut out for him - and barely a day after getting the job (and a wonderfully executed staged layup to get Mockobee on scholarship), Purdue fans are getting glimpses of everything people saw behind the scenes. Not just as an undeniably smart schematic coach, but as a budding program builder at the highest levels of college football.

You know, hopefully.

Make no mistake - while I’m really happy with this hire (especially compared to some alternatives floated around the rumor mill), Walters is a high ceiling, low floor proposition. We could have the next football coaching star (at both college and NFL levels) leading our program, and for Purdue to land him Bobinski had to be an early mover. The lack of head coaching experience, with no immediate answers to assistant coaches at OC/DC/ST/S&C, pose undeniable risks.

This is a huge leap of faith by Bobinski - not just in Walters as a head coach, but in the Purdue program as a place where rising stars have the foundation to grow and thrive (but can also weather the storm if he fails).

This is Bobinski putting a bet on the foundation built at Purdue - I’d argue, the first solid football foundation the program has had in 50 years. Bobinski is reportedly giving Walters (according to GBI) a ~$6M assistant coach salary pool, increased from the previous $4.3M pool. But Walters’ 5 year ~$20M deal, much shorter than the standard contract, shows that everyone knows this is a risk.

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In his introductory remarks, Bobinski called the Purdue job in 2016 a “reclamation project” that resulted in Brohm’s selection, and an undeniably successful 6-year tenure followed. Today, the Purdue job is a different opportunity to “sustain and ultimately grow” the program. A chance to be “distinctive and innovative” as Bobinski described, not just with offense but as a program.

It’s a risk, but if Walters succeeds it cements Purdue’s modern football program - and Berghoff and Bobinski’s athletic department - as a place where you can succeed with any coaching philosophy and can compete with any Big Ten school at the top of college football, as long as you are smart schematically, embrace recruiting and college football changes, and invest in player development to maximize their strengths.

Under Joe Tiller, Purdue took the jump from Big Ten bottom-feeder to a middle-of-the-pack, very fun, high-powered offensive football program. It’s a legacy cemented over the last six years under Jeff Brohm. If Purdue wants to take that next mini-leap, into the current Wisconsin-led mini-tier of consistently tough winners across multiple regimes, it will need to show success under multiple different philosophies.

Today’s big swing on Ryan Walters shows that Purdue is willing to embrace that challenge, and to show leadership as an institution - both on and off the field. It’s scary, but after watching Walters handle the initial spotlight, it makes me immensely proud.