Purdue coordinator Levine resigns

Tony Levine has resigned as an assistant coach at Purdue.

After the school announced he departure on Friday morning, saying he wanted to pursue a future outside of coaching, Levine followed with a tweet a day later, explaining that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

"Our children are now 12, 10, 8 & 6," the tweet read in part, "and I feel this is the right time for me to step away from coaching in order to make my family my priority."

Levine, 45, served as the Boilermakers' special teams coordinator, tight ends coach and co-offensive coordinator. A former head coach at Houston (2011-14) with 20 years of collegiate coaching experience, Levine had spent one year with Brohm at Western Kentucky before joining Purdue's staff for 2017. Considered a special teams guru, Levine coached a dynamic group for the Boilermakers, one that converted four punt fakes and had three blocked punts, although Purdue — with limited depth — had only marginal success in the return games.

"Coach Levine always changes things up," said punter Joe Schopper, who completed two passes for first downs this season, ran for another and drew a pass interference, in November. "Every day you can come in and he can call your number, so you've just got to be ready to go.

"It's fun getting to try new stuff. I haven't had a lot of experience with that before. He called those plays up and my eyes lit up and I was ready to go. I get excited about that stuff."

Brohm now has two openings on his staff, the 10th assistant, as granted by the NCAA, and the space created by Levine's departure.

Many reacted to Levine's news via social media:

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