Feature image from Kim Klement - USA TODAY Sports

Who Is He?

Bill O’Brien rose to prominence after turning a four-year stint in various roles with the New England Patriots (WRs, QBs, OC) into the head coaching job at Penn State. He was hired to replace Joe Paterno, and stayed with the Nittany Lions for two seasons. He went 8-4 in his first season on his way to becoming the National Coach of the Year in 2012. Penn State went 7-5 in 2013 and he quickly bolted to the NFL where he would parlay his membership in Bill Belichick’s coaching tree into being announced as the Head Coach of the Houston Texans. After some mixed success as Head Coach, O’Brien was made GM of the Texans in 2020, where terrible decision after terrible decision lead to his firing less than a year after taking the role. He was then hired on as the Offensive Coordinator at Alabama, who had (by their standards) one of their worse seasons in recent memories.

Why would he be successful at Purdue?

O’Brien has a reputation for being a creative play caller on offense, which is something that will always go over well at Purdue. Coaches who have NFL experience can leverage that in recruiting, let’s see…that’s about it.

Why could he flop at Purdue?

Because he’s Bill O’Brien.

Would he come to Purdue?

Let’s spell it out for everyone, there are two reasons Bill O’Brien is appearing on every coaching vacancy shortlist from every media member:

1. Alabama almost certainly wants to clean house and reset its entire offensive assistant coaching staff after underperforming with Bryce Young - the best quarterback Nick Saban has had at Alabama.

2. O’Brien is represented by CAA, one of the most powerful agencies in the business, and they know Saban is resetting his staff so they want BoB to be hired away rather than unceremoniously let go.

Regardless, O’Brien’s name is only being floated in relation to the Purdue job because his agent wants to keep his name fresh in people’s minds. Although hiring BoB would be a step up from Purdue’s historical approach to hiring - pluck promising HC candidates from strong lower level programs - in that they’d be hiring a “name,” this still doesn’t feel like a good fit on either end.