Put yourself in the AD’s shoes.
Welcome to the weekly roundtable. In this classic feature of all sports blogs, I check in with the staff on a specific question and see how they respond. This week? We turn to the state of Purdue football.
Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re Purdue’s AD, what do you do with Ryan Walters?
Ledman:
I’ve been thinking about this problem for a number of days. As I’ve said 1,000 times this year, the schedule that Purdue has faced, and will face, this year is absolutely brutal. I don’t think it matters who the coach is, if you put them with this team and against this schedule it would be tough (yes, I know if it were a different coach the roster would be different, just stick with me). That caveat out of the way, this Purdue football team has looked lost. They looked great for one good against a moribund Indiana State team and after that have barely been able to move the ball down the field or prevent their opponent from doing the same.
Mike Bobinski has a tough job ahead of him. He wants Walters to succeed, like we all do, but he was also the man who hired him so his success, or failure, reflects back directly on Bobinski. I know that money is a factor here as the buyout will cost somewhere between $9-$12 million depending on when he’s fired, but given the increase in cable revenues, Purdue should be able to make this work easily especially when you consider what sort of losses they would be looking at for season tickets if things don’t improve.
So, long story short, if I’m Bobisnki I’m looking into who might be available via back channels. I’m compiling a list of donors to reach out to to determine how much they’d be willing to donate and if they have suggestions on what to do (gotta humor the big donors). I’m also, having hard conversations with Ryan Walters and letting him know that if no improvement is shown through the rest of this season that he’s heading out the door. It’s hard to justify keeping a coach that goes 1-11 if the team not only doesn’t improve but actually gets worse as the season progresses.
Jed:
As the AD, the hardest thing you likely have to do is fire a head coach that you not only hired but also really believed had a chance to take the football program to the next level. You develop a close relationship with that coach and want nothing more than for him to be successful, which could make the hardest decisions even harder. However, when it becomes so apparent that a change needs to be made due to the lack of success and inability to be competitive, the band-aide needs to be ripped off.
If this was my decision, I’m not sure the decision is truly final with two games left on the schedule before a bye week. Those two games were likely to be losses no matter what Purdue was looking at this season with an away game at Illinois and a home game against Oregon, but how Purdue looks in those is going to be the biggest indicator of the decision. If Purdue comes out and looks competitive in a close loss to the Illini and doesn’t get the doors blown off by Oregon, then I think Walters has earned the right to stay through the end of the season with an evaluation to determine the future. If Purdue losses two more in embarrassing fashion, then the change needs to happen on Sunday after the Oregon game with Jason Simmons placed in charge for the remainder of the season.
The issue then becomes where does the money for Walters’ buyout come from? $9.5 million is a lot of money for any athletic department but when you start to think about apathy from the fanbase and the lost revenue on gamedays with a return back to 30k type crowds, the answer becomes rather simple. Spread the responsibility around as 50 donors are needed at an average of $200k to get it done for Walters’ contract plus his assistants once the season ends. If not, the fanbase will speak louder by a refusal to attend games.
Drew:
I’ve got 3 words for you…. International Space Station. Is this not the home of astronauts? Think about all the good will for having the first football coach in space.
Then we Gilligan Island him.
What was supposed to be a 3 hour space cruise turns into a year aboard the space station.
Purdue can’t go into the season without a coach, and Walters’s buy-out is null and void if he’s fired while off planet (a clever gambit by Bobinski).
I see no drawbacks.
Ryan:
I take my stacks of cash and head for somewhere tropical (oh and Walters can come too because he seems like a really chill guy to be around). In reality, if I’m Mike Bobinski, I am drafting a list of head coaches that can realistically be hired and I’m getting out the knee pads to beg the board for buyout money. If and when the time comes to fire Ryan Walters, I am going to be the most prepared AD to make a new hire.
Kyle:
I think it depends how the season finishes. But, as it stands now, he will have to go toe to toe with 3 of the top 4 teams in the nation.
We aren’t even at the halfway point and a change at coordinator has been made, then it was followed up with another abysmal performance.
Sometimes it’s not the Xs and Os, but the Jimmys and Joes. Good players make good coaches, he missed in the portal and it’s evident returning players did not take a step forward on the field. Pair that with poor coaching performances and you get where we are now.
More than anything, the NCAA isn’t what it used to be, even 10 years ago you could wait and give a guy like Hazell some wiggle room, now it is essentially semi pro football.
You have alumni pouring resources into NIL and the JPC, these people will grow impatient and stop donating quickly.
If the season ended today I think the decision is easy. Has he made improvements? No. Is the product acceptable? No. Is he recruiting 2025 well? No. Is there evidence it will get better? No.
Bobinski will need to find 9 million dollars for a buyout by December, well 14 million with assistant coaches pay, too.