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This was a busy offseason for assistant coaching movement at Purdue.
Jeff Brohm’s hired an entirely new set of assistants on defense, while Matt Painter had to replace two assistants after 2020-21. What was Purdue AD Mike Bobinski’s role when it came to assistant coaching hires?
“(The head coaches) make the decisions, obviously,” said Bobinski. “It's critical that they ultimately have the authority and the ability to hire people that they feel are the best and most qualified. But we talk about it, talk through it.”
Brohm has hired Brad Lambert as linebackers coach/co-defensive coordinator, Mark Hagen as defensive line coach, Ron English as cornerbacks coach and James Adams. English is expected to move to safeties coach with Adams coaching corners.
“On the football side, I could not be happier with the makeup, the new sort of reconstituted makeup of our staff. It feels really good,” said Bobinski.
“There's a great vibe, there's a great energy, there's a great connectedness amongst that staff and I think all players already feel it,” said Bobinski. “And to me, that makes a difference. I think players, teams feel when staffs are really in it together and when there’s a collective energy.”
Bobinski thinks the staff shake-up will benefit Brohm’s recruiting.
“I like what Jeff has done from a recruiting perspective and he's really given some of the coaching staff some ownership, and some real hands-on responsibility and authority on the recruiting side of things,” said Bobinski. “I think that just gets them more engaged and more bought in to making that a priority every day.”
Painter saw his top two assistants leave for head coaching jobs, with Micah Shrewsberry taking over Penn State and Steve Lutz becoming head coach at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Painter countered by bring in Paul Lusk from Creighton for a second stint as a Boilermaker assistant and hiring Terry Johnson from Ohio State.
“There’s nobody that's more thorough or more conscientious about (hiring assistants) than Matt Painter,” said Bobinski. “They spend so much time together and making sure that they each bring the right skill set, but also the right vibe so that they all will enjoy the time they spend together. It'll be productive and everyone will be working sort of in the same direction.”
Getting the hires right was especially key for Painter, as he welcomes back a 2021-22 team that will be steeped in great expectations. Having staff chemistry will be key to maximizing a roster that could be special.
“There are lots of high expectations about where we're going,” said Bobinski. “So, making sure that we added the right pieces to the coaching staff to help us take full advantage of the opportunity that we believe is ahead of us, which was really important.
“I like the way both Matt and Jeff went about it and think we landed in really good places.”
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