Back on July 21st our staff was at Big Ten Media Days. The largest topic of discussion among Purdue’s contingent was the projected last place finish in the conference. At the time, it felt like disrespect. Yes, Purdue was coming off of a 4-8 season and entering a bloated Big Ten with 18 teams, but there were some key returning pieces:

- Hudson Card had finished the 2023 season strong and was looking like he would grasp the offense even more in year 2.

- The offensive line, anchored by the return of Gus Hartwig, looked to be strong with multiple returning starters and deep thanks to the transfer portal.

- There were several promising receivers entering from the portal that, at least on paper, were highly rated.

- The defense was anchored by a freshman All-American in Dillon Thieneman and some high profile transfers as well.

No one was expected a playoff spot or a Big Ten title, but there was enough to think that six wins and a bowl game, even against a tough schedule, was at least possible. Purdue wasn’t that far from a bowl game in 2023 after all with very late losses to Fresno State and Northwestern, so even marginal improvement could see a bowl game.

Instead, the entire season was an absolute disaster.

A lot was forgettable about this season, but Purdue was actually the last FBS level team in the country to give up a point. Yes, that was the result of a blowout of an FCS team and a bye week, but entering the Notre Dame game there were plenty of reasons for optimism. Yes, it was Indiana State, but there was nothing in that game that suggested what was to come, and the Fighting Irish were coming off of a shocking home loss to Northern Illinois. On September 14th there was at least a modicum of confidence around the program.

At the time I wrote that the Notre Dame was loss was appalling. It’s one thing to lose to the Irish. I get it. They are a good team that is in the playoff this year, but no one expected a 66-7 defeat that would double as the worst loss in program history.

It never really got better from there. There were a few blips of positivity. The Illinois game and late comeback were fun and Big Ten officiating might have robbed Purdue of a win there, but for much of the rest of the season we saw one of the worst teams in school history.

Purdue finished the season by losing 11 straight games. It has not done that since going 0-5 in both the 1906 and 1907 seasons bad losing the 1908 season opener. That was so long ago that Purdue lost three times to the University of Chicago, twice to Wabash, twice to Illinois, twice to Wisconsin, and twice to Notre Dame, all while scoring 15 points total. This was before the advent of the forward pass, statehood for Arizona, and even the Cubs’ second World Series title.

This season only really compares to Darrell Hazell’s first year, which was also a 1-11 season with a win over Indiana State. Was this team better, or worse? That is difficult to say. That teams scored just 179 points, didn’t score over 25 until the Bucket Game, and gave up 456 points. This team topped that in scoring with 189 points, but it gave up more in 479. Even in that, if you dive deeper you see more appalling numbers:

- More than half of those points scored came in just two games against Indiana State and Illinois, where Purdue scored 49 points each time.

- Over the course of the season Purdue scored just 13 points in the first quarter, and seven of those came on the season’s opening drive. It got a first quarter field goal against Northwestern and Michigan State after that.

- Purdue was shutout three times: by Oregon, Ohio State, and Indiana.

- It was outscored 261-17 in five games against teams that are currently in the top 10 and never even came close to leading any of those games.

- After the Indiana State game Purdue held a lead on a team for roughly 10 minutes. It led Nebraska 3-0 for 3:53, Illinois 49-46 for 46 seconds, and Michigan State for 4:53. That adds up to nine minutes and 32 seconds where Purdue held a lead this year over an FBS level opponent, and the lead was never larger than 3 points.

Does that make this team worse than 2013? It is hard to say. This team lost a pair of games in overtime, but the 2013 held a lead for more than 10 minutes a couple of times. That team struggled to beat an even worse Indiana State team, but it also led Notre Dame in the fourth quarter.

Ultimately, Ryan Walters’ fate was decided by the incredibly lopsided margins. It is not that Purdue was bad, but that it often looked like the opposition barely needed to put forth an effort in order to win comfortably. None of those top 10 teams had to work even remotely hard to earn it. Oregon and Indiana each had backbreaking 99-yard touchdown drives in the second quarter that effectively ended the game. It often looked like Purdue was playing against 15-man fronts when it was on offense, and conversely, it looked like Purdue was often playing with just eight defenders.

It is still appalling because at least Hazell had the excuse that he was doing a complete and total rebuild from the ground up. If you go by the recruiting rankings this year’s team had more talent, and nothing from year 1 under Walters suggested that the program would fall completely off of a cliff like it has.

It feels like an even slightly better Purdue team could have scraped together three wins against Illinois, Northwestern, and Michigan State. Nebraska and Oregon State were far from overwhelming opponents, either. Instead, we saw a historically bad program and it cost Ryan Walters his job after only two years.

Now Purdue begins anew having no idea what the roster will look like when it takes the field against Ball State to start next season. The transfer portal is going to give and take. I am not going to speculate on who is gone and who is not, but there are only nine HS commits as of right now and I would not be shocked if there is a massive number of departures. We saw this year what successful use of the portal can do in year one with the tremendous season Indiana has had, but this Hoosier team started from a much higher spot than Purdue will in 2025.

If Ryan Walters had returned it felt like 2025 was going to be a lost season because by the end he had clearly lost the team. Now Purdue is forced to roll the dice again on a new coach just two years later, only this time with all the momentum of the final two Brohm years completely gone.

This is not an enviable position. Purdue does have improved facilities and thanks to being grandfathered into the Big Ten it has the revenue it needs, but the climb to respectability will be difficult. Purdue still has Notre Dame on the schedule next year. It has Michigan and Ohio State on the slate as well as USC and Washington. It is not as daunting as this year’s slate, but there is no such thing as an “easy” schedule anymore.

Mike Bobinski now has the toughest decision of his tenure as athletic director. He took a big risk on Walters and lost big. Over the next few weeks he has to find a way to rebuild a program that is lower than any other power conference program in the country.

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