Football Staff Taking Shape
Head Coach - Ryan Walters
Offensive Coordinator - Graham Harrell (Former WVU OC)
Defensive Coordinator - Kevin Kane (Former Illinois AHC/LBS)
Strength and Conditioning - Kiero Small (Former Associate Director of S&C at Michigan)
Offensive Line - TBD
Wide Receivers - Cory Patterson (Former Illinois RB)
Tight Ends - Seth Doege (Former Ole Miss Analyst)
Running Backs - TBD
Quarterbacks - Graham Harrell
Defensive Like - Brick Haley (Former Minniestoa DL)
Linebackers - Joe Dineen (Former GA Illinois)
Linebackers - Kevin Kane (Former Illinois AHC)
Safeties - Grant O’Brien (Former Illinois Analyst)
Cornerbacks - Sam Carter (Former Ole Miss Corners)
Special Teams Coordinator - TBD
The coaching staff is nearly complete. Yesterday, Coach Walters added Sam Carter and Seth Doege into the fold.
Carter and Coach Walters have ties, dating back to their Missouri days. Carter, who became an analyst for Barry Odom at Missouri right after he graduated from TCU, is young. Something which has become commonplace with the Ryan Walters’ staff, which as I have said, has pros and cons.
Carter and portal target, Jalen Catalon have a history. Carter was his position coach while he was at Arkansas before leaving for Ole Miss this season. From everything I have read, Carter, while young, has an old-school tough-nosed mentality, something that sometimes is not evident in young coaches. This officially removes any thought of Ryan Walters coaching a position group, which he shouldn’t do as a head coach anyway.
Seth Doege and Graham Harrell date back to their Texas Tech days. Doege, who was an analyst at Ole Miss this season on the offensive side of the ball, redshirted and backed up Harrell before eventually becoming the starting quarterback, where he had over 8,000 yards passing in two seasons.
Doege and Harrell come from directly under the Mike Leach air raid tree, and more than likely, have a similar mindset. He is young as well, being just 34 years of age. And yes, to answer questions, air raid offenses use tight ends. There is a common misconception that they do not, but that is false. They are often detached from the line of scrimmage, but having that mismatch is something that the offensive scheme loves.
Brick Haley was hired a couple of days ago, he has a rich pedigree. At 56 years old, he is the oldest member of this young staff, something that is needed. In particular, I personally love the Defensive Line and Offensive Line coaches to be older guys, that have seen it all, these two coaches need to be two of your best on staff.
Haley spent a year under PJ Fleck at Minnesota but has been all over the place. He and Coach Walters worked together at Missouri, where Haley served as the defensive line and Associate Head Coach. The Barry Odom coaching tree is a strong one, apparently really strong in West Lafayette now.
He served as a Defensive Coordinator at Baylor from 1999 to 2001, but, aside from that, he has always worked with defensive linemen, dating back to 1989. Now, there are three defensive coaches on staff that have been coordinators before, with Walters, Haley, and Kane all serving in the role at previous locations
Look for the rest of the staff to fill out very soon. As I have mentioned before, this weekend is the American Football Coaches Association Clinic, where there is a plethora of interviews and networking, in my opinion, it is a vital weekend for a young head coach. Walters may be down there interviewing candidates for Special Teams, Offensive Line, and Running Back.
Aside from Strength and Conditioning, I believe Offensive Line is the most important hire he has to make… I am fine with Coach taking his time to ensure that he hires the right guy for a vital position - a position that I thought lacked a great coach for the last decade or so.
The Transfer Portal
The Transfer Portal is open until the 18th of January, and offers have started to heat up from the Ryan Walters staff. While many are growing impatient, as we have only one portal commit in Texas transfer Hudson Card, I think it is important to realize that this is an entirely new staff, in particular a young staff that is looking to build relationships in recruiting and rapport across the nation.
Offers have begun to roll out in the last few days though. I would expect a couple more commitments for Purdue during this January Portal, but do not expect a total roster flip. The roster at Purdue has not turned over at the rate of Colorado or Arizona State, at these schools, players left in a mass exodus. A couple of reasons for that, probably.
1. You guys all saw the Deion video, basically saying they can hit it if they want, so the kids did.
2. These schools were much much much worse than Purdue, they were awful football programs.
With that in mind, Coach Walters has spent considerable time recruiting his own roster. Sure, we have lost some guys to the portal, but from what I have been told, it is nowhere to what it would have been if the previous staff was still here. Take that for what it is worth.
Holstege chased some NIL money to UCLA, hard to blame him. Deen, Sullivan, and Johnson were all thought to be done with football, instead, they are going to use their last year elsewhere, again, no big deal.
Purdue Rivals Transfer Portal
In my opinion, there has not been a considerable loss from the roster, aside from Brady Allen and he was replaced hours later, in terms of roster spot by Hudson Card and there is still a good chance that Brady could come back to Purdue. Washington is after him, but Coach Walters, is in fact, trying to keep him at Purdue.
But, other than Allen, Holstege, and the three defensive linemen we did not expect to come back in 2023 anyway, the roster is mostly intact. Part of me believes that the guys want to see how the Spring Semester will go. They can always enter again, the 2nd portal opening is from May 1st to May 15th, and if that happens, maybe we see more roster turnover then. But the coaching staff has done a good job of keeping our roster around.
And I do agree with you all, we do need help at certain positions and we have scholarships open, but like his coaching staff decisions, I think portal offers will be ones he feels very confident about. The offensive line could use a couple of guys, a defensive line, a defensive back, and a running back.
Basketball Bounces Back
After their first loss of the season, at home to Rutgers, who is apparently our #1 kryptonite, Purdue and Matt Painter bounced back with a huge round win at Ohio State last night. At one point, the Boilers were down ten. In a game where Vegas slated Purdue as the underdogs, they came out on top and today they will be on their way to Philadelphia.
They will play Former Purdue assistant Micah Shrewsberry and his Penn State squad at the historic Palestra. This will be no small task for the Boilermakers. If there is a team that knows what Purdue does better than anyone, it is Penn State. Coach Shrews has the Nittany Lions rolling early on, with an 11-4 record.
But, with the win last night, Purdue may be riding a confidence boost. The Boilermakers hadn’t shot well from three in the last 5 games, while last night they did not light the world on fire either, they found some rhythm in the second half. Jenkins gave Purdue a nice spark from deep and Loyer heated up after a below-average first half.
This Purdue team will lose more games, there is no doubt that. But, they will fight tooth and nail, that is the makeup of this team. Saturday will be their third game since the New Year has started, expect their legs to be a bit tired, but they have a nice break on the horizon.
Commits and Targets Update
Myles Colvin - Purdue’s lone 2023 Commit has his Heritage Christian team on a three-game winning streak after they lost 5 in a row. The four-star recruit and top 100 players for the class of 2023 had this highlight dunk early in the week:
Jack Benter - Benter is averaging over 30 points per game for his Brownstown Central Team. he has led them to a 9-2 early season record, only having losses to Fort Wayne Blackhawk and Cincinnati Withrow. Benter might be one of the best shooters that Coach Painter has ever recruited, though, he is far from just a shooter. He can do it all.
Kanon Catchings - Catchings is having a great start against some of the best competition in the state of Indiana. He averaging just under 20 points per game for the Brownsburg Bulldogs who are 11-1. He led his team to win the championship in the Kokomo Holiday Tournament, where his team beat the top 5 players in the 2024 class, Flory Bidunga.
Flory Bidunga - Casey has seen Flory play a few times this season and has left unimpressed with the coaching side of it, as he believes Flory could be used in a different manner. Bidunga appears to be leaning more towards Cincy - but Painter is still in the mix for him.
Raleigh Burgess - The 6-10 center out of Cincinnati will get more of a look now with JT Rock committing to Iowa State. Purdue needs a big for the 2024 class, as that is still the feature part of their offense. Look for Painter and Brantley to get more involved with Burgess again.
JT Rock - Committed to Iowa State.
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