Bobinski provides insights and updates as Purdue searches for its’ next football coach
Purdue Boilermakers Athletic Director Mike Bobinski spoke to the media following yesterday’s announcement to fire Ryan Walters following an 1-11 season that was punctuated by a 66-0 loss to the Indiana Hoosiers.
The video and brief notes for the press conference are below:
Purdue Football Press Conference | Dec. 2, 2024 https://t.co/NEvregIzSO
— Purdue Athletics (@PurdueSports) December 2, 2024
- Bobinski stated that he “No longer had the confidence that this could get turned around.” That is a rather strong statement about why he made the decision to pull the plug on Ryan Walters. Bobinski also stated that he simply saw no path forward and didn’t feel that Walters had a chance to turn it around in any reasonable time frame.
- Bobinski said he has been working in the background on a multitude of things. Was working on what he needed to help Walters improve moving forward but said that several weeks ago it was too overwhelming and the program was too far gone. He has also been doing background on candidates for several weeks.
- Bobinski expects a decision to be made in the next 7-10 days. I believe with university policy, a job posting must be made for seven days to allow candidates to apply. It would seem that, if a decision hasn’t already been made and determined, they are very close.
- Bobinski also shared that the 66-0 loss to Indiana had no bearing on the ultimate decision.
- Bobinski believes that the Boilermaker Alliance will remain but their stated goals will change and that the philanthropic side will go away by July 1st.
- Purdue is working to retain important players for the next head coach. A focus will obviously be made on Dillion Thieneman, Devin Mockobee, Max Klare, and several other younger players.
- Bobinski was asked about why he felt Walters wasn’t successful at Purdue. It seemed as though Bobinski believed Walters simply couldn’t provide the oversight necessary from a program wide standpoint and used the phrase ‘the whole never became greater than the sum of the parts.’ That points to a lack of definitive leadership that understands how to make decisions and provide direction.
- Bobinski would later go on to state that he felt as though there was no staff cohesion, pointing again to a lack of definitive leadership in knowing how to assemble a staff. That likely points also to Bobinski wanting to find a head coach who will bring his staff with him or, at the very least, a coach with lots of experience doing so. Stated that was a glaring weakness for the program.
- Bobinski didn’t clarify what their salary expectations would be but stated Purdue will pay to get the very best head coach and the very best staff that Purdue can get.