Coaching in the Big Ten is very different than coaching in the Mountain West.
Purdue head coach Barry Odom found that out last year when the Boilermakers finished 2025 with just a 2-10 record. At the same time, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to Odom. After all, he coached Missouri in the SEC for four years, finishing with a 25-25 record with the Tigers.
What really did him in with Missouri was a five-game losing streak in the second half of the season after the Tigers began the season by going 5-1.
After he was fired by Mizzou, he joined new Razorbacks head coach Sam Pittman as Arkansas’ defensive coordinator for three seasons.
He managed to parlay his time at Arkansas into a head coaching gig with UNLV. In two seasons with the Rebels, Odom finished with a 19-8 record, making him the winningest coach in UNLV history.
Orchestrating the Rebels’ turnaround from 5-7 in 2022 to 9-5 in 2023 combined with a 10-3 record in 2023 led Purdue to come calling after the Boilermakers fired second-year man Ryan Walters following a 1-11 campaign in 2023.
Well, to Odom’s credit, he did manage to double Walters’ win total last season, but the Boilermakers were still terrible last year. After winning two non-conference games to start the season against Ball State and FCS school Southern Illinois, Purdue lost their final ten games including all nine Big Ten conference games.
If you thought UCLA football was a disaster last year (don’t we all?), it was actually worse in West Lafayette, Indiana. Going winless in the Big Ten ensured that Purdue would finish dead last in the conference standings. By comparison, UCLA interim head coach led the Bruins to a tie for 12th place in the conferece with just three conference wins.
So far this season, Purdue beat FCS school Indiana State 44-19 and lost last week to Wake Forest 38-36 in double overtime.
Following last season’s dismal performance, defensive coordinator Michael Scherer left the program and Odom brought Kevin Kane back to be the new defensive coordinator, but Kane hasn’t exactly proven to be a good defensive coordinator. Kane previously spent two seasons with the Boilermakers in 2023 and 2024. In those two seasons plus this year’s first two games, Kane’s defense has only held opposing defenses under 20 points four times and two of those games came against Indiana State. The other two games came against Virginia Tech and Illinois in 2023. Under Kane, Purdue has allowed opposing offenses to score 30 points or more in 16 of the 26 games. So, it’s fair to assume the Bruins will be able to put up a lot of points on Saturday.
On the offensive side of the ball, former Southern Cal offensive coordinator Josh Henson will call the plays. You may recall that when Henson was with the Trojans, he did not have playcalling responsibility. That belonged to head coach Lincoln Riley. Previously, Henson’s experience as an offensive coordinator consisted of three seasons working under Gary Pinkel at Missouri, but Pinkel was an offensive coach. So, it’s not clear that Henson called plays with the Tigers either.
Interestingly, Odom chose not to retain Henson as the Tigers’ offensive coordinator when Odom took over for Pinkel.
In fourteen games at Purdue, Henson’s offense has scored 30 points or more in just five of the 14 games Henson has coached.
Given the combination of results so far under Odom, along with Kevin Kane’s defensive results and Henson’s lack of offensive results, I won’t be surprised if Purdue pulls the plug on the Barry Odom era sooner rather than later.
Purdue Boilermakers’ Special Teams
Freshman Jacobo Echeverria Lozano will handle field goal and PAT duties for Purdue. In two games this year, he is six-for-seven on field goal attempts and a perfect eight-for-eight on PATs. His longest field goal so far was a 39-yarder against Indiana State in Week 1 and his lone miss was a 49-yard try in the first quarter last week against Wake Forest.
Junior Seth Turner is the Boilermakers’ kickoff specialist. Last season, he kicked off 53 times with 30 of them resulting in touchbacks. So far this year, he has kicked off 13 times with seven going for a touchback. He is averaging 62.3 yards per kickoff this year.
Punting duties will be handled by redshirt sophomore Dylan Drennan. He joined Purdue this season after spending the past two seasons at Buffalo. He has only been called on to punt three times this year, twice against Wake Forest last week and just once against the Sycamores the week before. His longest was the punt against Indiana State which was a 54-yarder. Last week, he had punts of 47 and 38 yards.
Wide receiver Xavier Townsend is the only Boilermaker to return a punt this season. He has returned four punts for just 24 yards including a long of 14. So, he doesn’t seem like much of a threat.
The same can be said for junior running back Travis Terrell, Jr. Terell has returned just two kickoffs for 22 and 20 yards, respectively. Eight opposing kickoffs have been touchbacks and one went out of bounds, which accounts for the low number of returns for the season.
Go Bruins!!!
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