The announcement was made today.
In a move that has long been suspected, Purdue AD Mike Bobinski today announced the firing of head coach Ryan Walters. Walters finishes his Purdue career with a 5-19 record. This comes on the heels of a 1-11 season in which Purdue was shutout three separate times and set the record for worst loss in Purdue football history on two separate occasions.
Sources: Purdue is firing coach Ryan Walters after two seasons. He’s gone 5-19 in his two years at the school, including 1-11 this year. pic.twitter.com/VaOn8xlRRW
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 1, 2024
Walters came in as one of the hot coordinators during that year’s hiring season. He was the defensive coordinator at Illinois who helped build some very good Illinois’ defenses including a special focus on the secondary. The hope with the hiring was that Walters would be able to import his defensive philosophy and build on what he was able to do at Illinois. It seemed a bit of a strange marriage from the beginning as Purdue has historically been a school more focused on offense. Their identity has always been offense. But, we were told upon his hiring that Walters impressed everyone and made a very good impression on them. I assumed that meant his plan for keeping Purdue near the top of the conference, they were coming off of a Big Ten Championship game, but it was never fully explained what his plan was.
With Walters fired, Purdue will now owe him over $9 million which he will be paid over the span of the contract which runs through December 2027. That money is certainly a big hit, but the calculus is that this amount of money was not a deterrent when looking at the possible losses going forward.
There’s a lot of work to do now with the inevitable coaching search. We will cover all of that on the site as we move forward through the journey heard. The Ryan Walters’ era is now over after lasting just two seasons. The next steps are incredibly important for the future of Purdue football.