Using Logic to find Purdue's New Coach

In case you didn't know, Purdue fired their coach, Ryan Walters immedietely after the loss to Indiana. On Monday, December 2nd, the Purdue staff held a press conference where it was stated that the goal was to have a coach in place prior to the opening of the transfer portal (Dec 9th). While that is a normal timeline, what is interesting is the lack of information we are seeing on who Purdue is targeting. Last time around, Jeff Brohm left purdue on the 7th and Ryan Walters was announced as the next coach on the 13th. Rumors of his hiring was made well before, around the 11th. A 4-10 day TAT is pretty typical in college atheletcs. At the time of writing this, we have not seen a single report or rumor as to who Purdue is looking at, and we are 5 days into the search. I want to take a deeper dive into why that might be.

If Purdue's #1 target was someone who is currently not coaching I believe they would be hired by now. They have no negotiating for a buyout, no games to take care of, and would want as much time as possible to build a staff out before portal opens. That means we can rule guys like Paul Chryst and Pat Fitzgerald out.

The same logic can be applied to coaches who are not playing in a championship game. While the hiring probably would not be complete by now, we would see some activity in interviews or buzz about who was coming in. That can rule out guys like Jeff Traylor, Jamey Chadwell, and Jason Candle (UTSA, Liberty, and Toledo).

That means we are looking at coaches who are still coaching in championship games or have playoff appearance on the horizon. That leaves the following schools: Alabama, Ohio State, Penn State, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, SMU, Notre Dame, boise state, UNLV, Ohio, Miami of Ohio, Jax State, Western Kentucky, Tulane, Army, Iowa State, Louisiana, Marshall, and Clemson. While this is a very large list of schools, we can cut down the list further, by removing schools that are making it to the playoff, as if the goal is to hire a coach prior to Dec 9th, no playoff coach or coordinator would make that fit. We are then left with UNLV, Ohio, Miami of Ohio, WKU, Jax State, Tulane, Army, Louisiana and Marshall. The list of coaches we are looking at here are, In order of school, Barry Odom, Tim Albin, Chuck Martin, Tyson Helton, Rich Rodriguez, John Sumrall, Jeff Monken, Matt Campbell, Mike Desormeaux, and Charles Huff.

We can further cut this list down, as Sumrall is hinted to be the next coach at North Carolina. We can remove Huff, as he is already in final talks with Southern Miss. Desormeaux is not getting any looks, so we can cut him out too.

That leaves us with Odom, Albin, Martin, Helton, Rich Rod, Monken, and Campbell. I would be extremely shocked if campbell leaves, so I am crossing him off. I am also crossing off Odom, as I heard that he is trying to get back into the SEC. That leaves us with four.

Albin, Martin, Rich Rod and Helton. I am leaning towards cutting Rich Rod out. He flamed out pretty badly last time he was in the Big 10, so I see the final 3 being Albin, Martin, and Helton. Helton was the runner up last time apparently, and I've seen reports that there is a lot of support for him internally. Albin seems the weakest of the 3, but was a finalist last time as well. Martin, please no. When I said Albin is the weakest, I meant of candidacy, he is a better football coach than Martin. The only reason I have Martin on this list is that I have a fairly credible source who says that the Purdue job is Martin's if he wants it.

Cross your fingers for Helton, but we should find out soon!