Purdue fires Ryan Walters after winless Big Ten season

Purdue has fired coach Ryan Walters after two seasons, ending his tenure there at 5-19.

The Boilermakers went 1-11 and completed the season with 11 consecutive losses, together with going winless within the Big Ten. Purdue’s season ended with a 66-0 loss at Indiana on Saturday.

Walters got here to Purdue from his job because the defensive coordinator at Illinois. Prior to that, he’d been the defensive coordinator at Missouri. He went 4-8 in his first season at Purdue, which included wins over Virginia Tech, Illinois and Indiana.

“This was a really tough resolution, as head coach Ryan Walters continued to guide the Boilermakers with integrity, resilience and poise within the face of appreciable challenges,” Purdue athletic director Mike Bobinski mentioned in an announcement.

Walters is owed 75% of his remaining compensation at Purdue, which equates to $9.34 million. The college mentioned it has begun a nationwide search to search out Walters’ alternative.

The transfer comes within the wake of Purdue’s struggles to retain prime gamers, because it misplaced its prime offensive and defensive gamers from final yr. Wide receiver Deion Burks went to Oklahoma and defensive lineman Nic Scourton went to Texas A&M for vital NIL paychecks.

The attraction of the Purdue job might be that it is on the proper facet of the realignment river within the Big Ten, as Purdue’s funding transferring ahead when the anticipated income share turns into a actuality in 2025 might be a giant query that looms over the teaching search.

Purdue has a protracted historical past of hiring coaches with offensive aptitude, from Jeff Brohm to Joe Tiller. And there’s an expectation that it’s going to try and rekindle that wide-open id.

Walters fired offensive coordinator Graham Harrell in late September, because the Boilermakers struggled to search out their footing on that facet of the ball.

Purdue is likely one of the Big Ten jobs that has develop into tougher within the period of superconferences, because it slid down the pecking order of Big Ten jobs by 4 spots with the addition of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington.

ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg contributed to this report.