100 Days to Purdue Football: A New Beginning

The 2023 edition of Purdue football is going to look quite different. The Boilermakers have a new quarterback, new receivers, several new players from the transfer portal, and a new leader in coach Ryan Walters. The Jeff Brohm era has closed, and the world of the transfer portal seems to make that door closing seem even more final. Gone are the days of a previous coach’s roster slowly working its way out over the years. As recently as last year Purdue still had a player on the roster that was recruited by Darrell Hazell in Semisi Fakasiieiki. This year Brohm will have three players at Louisville that played for him at Purdue in Jack Plummer, Eric Miller, and Brady Allen because things can change that quickly.

What makes this new beginning so exciting is that there is little question that the Brohm era, especially the final two seasons, can be considered a success. Jeff Brohm inherited a program that, quite honestly, was one of the worst in the Power 5 conferences in late 2016. The disaster that was the Darrell Hazell era showed no signs of being a quick turnaround, but that’s what Jeff Brohm accomplished. The 7-6 season in 2017 did not catapult Purdue into the realms of the Alabama's and Ohio State's of the world, but it was a deeply satisfying turn around for Purdue fans that had seen only five FBS level wins in the previous four years.

Arguably, the overall era for coach Brohm could be even better if not for a rash of key injuries in 2019 ( Elijah Sindelar and Rondale Moore went down on the same play, missing most or all of the season to follow) and the COVID year of 2020 where the entire season was cancelled, delayed, and finally shortened. Purdue came out of that and won 17 games in the last two seasons. It won a divisional title for the first time in program history. It beat three top-5 teams. It was ranked in the top 25 for the first time in 15 years and had a nine win season for the first time in 18 years. You have to go back a quarter century, to 1997 and 1998, to find the last time Purdue won at least 17 games in consecutive seasons, and before that you have to go back to 1979 and 1980.

Jeff Brohm's tenure ends in a sour note with his inevitable exit, but there's no denying that he had a lot of success at a place where success is hard to come by.

That is what coach Ryan Walters is coming into. Purdue is not a national power, but the floor has been raised significantly. Purdue has added the facilities to help a new compete in the Big Ten with the new Kozuch complex and the South End Zone project being worked on this summer to enhance the Ross-Ade experience on game day. There's more money than ever coming from the new Big Ten TV deals.

In 100 days we will see the first steps of that new beginning. Like any coaching transition, there are a ton of questions. The very early results look promising, however. The entire coaching staff is much younger and has a different vibe to it.

Walters came to Purdue with lofty goals and understanding where Purdue had been and where it could go.

"It's not a rebuild, right," Walters said during questions and answers way back in December at his introductory press conference. "I'm trying to elevate and really dive into and understand the tradition and the standard here. So it'll be my job to raise that standard and continues to chase and win championships."

And while Brohm's footsteps will be large ones to fill, there is also a new wave of energy in in Walters and his young staff. Recruits are noticing. While Brohm's demeanor had started to wear thin in the locker room and around the athletic department. Walters, 15 years younger than Brohm, looks to push Purdue into the next age of college athletics.

On the field, Walters brings a unique and fresh approach to defense. He transformed Illinois' defense and hopes do the same with Purdue's. On offense, Walters has insisted he wants to keep Purdue at the forefront of throwing the ball.

To help with that, he's brought along a Mike Leach disciple, and one of the best offensive coordinators in the country, Graham Harrell. Harrell and Walters made no time in adding the next quarterback to take up 'cradle of quarterbacks' mantle. Before stepping foot in West Lafayette, Harrell joined Walters to go visit Texas quarterback Hudson Card. Card would soon follow both coaches, transferring to Purdue with the starting role all but his going into the summer.

Purdue will need all the genius between Harrell on offense and Walters on defense if it's going to pick up where it left off last season.

Purdue’s 2023 schedule does it no favors. The Boilermakers open the season as an early touchdown favorite against a Group of Five conference champ in Fresno State that lost a ton offensively, but is a program that has an established reputation as a difficult opponent that specializes in upsetting major conference foes. Purdue will travel into Lane Stadium to take on a Virginia Tech program that has struggled lately, but will be an early non-conference road challenge. Then Purdue will host a Syracuse team that beat Purdue in the final seconds at Syracuse last season.

The Big Ten schedule is not favorable for a return to Indianapolis and the Big Ten Title game with both Ohio State and Michigan returning to Purdue's schedule, as well as long time nemesis, Wisconsin, who Purdue has still not beat in two decades now. But there are winnable games with struggling Northwestern and Indiana on the schedule. The bottom of the Big Ten has fallen out in the last couple seasons, and programs like Nebraska and Wisconsin are also going through new coaching hires. Iowa's notable, perhaps, for their lack of coaching changes despite an ailing offense. Illinois and Minnesota, two teams that Purdue beat last year on the road, both have to come to West Lafayette.

It might be even more difficult to know what that success will look like this year when Purdue projects to have the toughest schedule in the country going into the season.

There are a lot of new pieces and still some holes that Walters will look to fill over the summer. Walters could really use an offensive tackle or two in the portal. The secondary has a bunch of questions and almost no experience. A new quarterback will attempt to make his mark after a career derailed by injury at Texas.

Still, a 6-7 win season looms as both a giant achievement and a promising first step for a program that could be on the rise. Purdue's shown itself capable of knocking off Ohio State under Brohm, if Walters can have a similar upset, the schedule opens up with a Big Ten that's devoid of the top end rankings of years past.

Purdue could find itself on the rise as the Big Ten prepares to transform, adding two California schools in the 2024 season.