WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue football is walking into a land of unknowns as it prepares for the season opener against Ball State on Saturday afternoon. The official unveiling of the Barry Odom era in Ross-Ade Stadium marks the first opportunity for the Boilermakers to showcase themselves to the masses, and potentially find themselves in […]
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue football is walking into a land of unknowns as it prepares for the season opener against Ball State on Saturday afternoon. The official unveiling of the Barry Odom era in Ross-Ade Stadium marks the first opportunity for the Boilermakers to showcase themselves to the masses, and potentially find themselves in the process.
Nobody knows exactly what this Purdue team is going to look like.
The Boilermakers lead the nation with 54, and have 82 new faces on the roster from last season. Within that avalanche of new Boilermakers is expected to be 21 new starters, with only senior running back Devin Mockobee retaining his role among players that started four or more games a season ago.
The same can be said for Ball State, however. The Cardinals will feature over 50 newcomers to their roster, which does include five former Boilermakers that were added via the transfer portal this off-season. Evaluating what Ball State could throw their way on Saturday has Purdue assessing all possibilities heading into its season opener.
“I think it is a little more difficult than years ago when you knew exactly who the returning players were, because you played them the year before. But I think, if you look around the world of college football, most everybody’s probably thinking about the same thing going into week one. So it’s a decision on, are you willing enough and trust enough to go see what you see on what that person or player did last year,” Odom said on Monday.
“You lean on your experience, but then you look at, what kind of skill sets do they have? What might they be best at? What they what might they try and do that, maybe they’ve done in the past? But you just got a lot of eyes researching everything and trying to find every little thing that we can find,” defensive coordinator Mike Scherer said.
Odom himself is entering a brand new venture, embarking on his tenure with the Boilermakers, his first coaching gig in the Big Ten. After turning a stale program around at UNLV, he is looking to do the same in West Lafayette. On the flip side, Ball State head coach Mike Uremovich is about to make his FBS head coaching debut after spending the last three years at Butler.
Another Purdue coach is set to embark on a new journey, as offensive coordinator Josh Henson returns to being the play caller at the collegiate level for the first time in a decade. Odom and Henson shared time in Columbia, where the new Purdue offensive coordinator helped guide the Tigers to a pair of SEC East Division titles in 2013 and 2014. After a dip in offensive success in 2015, coinciding with Odom being elevated from defensive coordinator to head coach in 2016, Henson was not retained and headed to Oklahoma State as offensive line coach.
The two are now reunited ten years later and Odom is entrusting Henson to lead the Purdue offense to new heights, after last year’s attack ranked 130th in scoring.
“I think Josh has a really good feel for how to build an offense week to week. I mean, every single week we’re building, you have your base things you do, but every week you’re building a game plan a week,” Odom said. “I have great trust in all of our coaches and a great belief, and they’ve got really good on the offensive side listening, and I’ve spent a lot of time in those meetings, just the collaboration within the assistant coaches and all the guys on that side of the ball.”
Henson is also tasked with building an offense around a nucleus of players that he’s largely never seen in a game setting. Purdue thinks it knows what it has, but game days are a different experience than playing against Mike Scherer’s defense in practice and scrimmages. Saturday’s showing will provide a baseline that the Boilermakers can build on, in that regard.
“I think it’s gonna be a process that’s ongoing,” Henson said. “We’ll watch it Saturday and see where we’re at. Certainly, you have to start somewhere. It’s not just like every week you’re doing something new, right?”
“I feel good about where we’re at, putting our guys in position and asking them to do things that they’re good at, at this point, and then, it’s going to be fun, because we’re going to get on the field and see how good we are at it against an opponent,” Henson said.
A key cog in that endeavor will be newly-minted starting quarterback Ryan Browne and how he has developed this off-season. Browne is in line to get his third career start on Saturday after coming out on top of Purdue’s quarterback battle throughout fall camp. The rising sophomore will now have his opportunity to be “the man” in West Lafayette, but that title brings more unknowns as Browne continues to develop as a full-time starter for the first time.
Ball State’s offense will also be led by an intriguing signal caller that Scherer and company have had their hands full studying for. Kiael Kelly spent time at quarterback, running back, and receiver in 2024, but did start six games at quarterback for Ball State in 2023, where he had 724 yards and seven scores on the ground.
“It’s difficult to prepare because, last season (he) may not have played quarterback, but that’s okay. You can see what type of athlete, two seasons ago, he did play quarterback. So there’s a lot of video on what type of athletes they have at quarterback, and they’re impressive,” Scherer said. “You mold, maybe what some of the coaches have done in their past, and what maybe this quarterback is good at, and other guys in the team are good at, and just try do the best you can and put our guys in the best position.”
Scherer has a veteran-led defense, particularly in the secondary, to lean on in his first go-around as a Power 4 coordinator, but what his defense will look like remains in question. From the time he was hired by Barry Odom, Scherer has voiced his desire to be multiple on the defensive side of the ball.
Purdue has many variables at play, including a mystery as to who will actually trot out as starters with no depth chart being provided on Monday, as it begins the Odom era against the Cardinals. The Boilermakers are filled with unknowns that will find answers on Saturday afternoon, which is hopes are lessons learned in victory, while a revamped Ball State squad provides similar intrigue under new leadership.
Category: General Sports
