Purdue Football: Time to play athletic director

I want to start this article by reminding everyone that I have no idea what's going on with the coaching search. I have no inside information, I don't know anyone with inside information, and I don't trust anyone who claims to have inside information. This is simply a thought exercise and is for entertainment purposes only.

There is no definitive ending to this article. I'm going to try to keep this one around 1000 words and then pick up where I left off in the next one. I'm assuming that Purdue will hire a coach before I run out of things to say, because these are the things my brain likes to think about at 3 a.m., even if Purdue isn't looking for a head coach.

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section. Again, let me reiterate: these are just my personal thoughts and it is possible, if not likely, that your thoughts on this subject are better than mine. At the end of the day, they all played amateur athletic directors.

Anyway, without further delay….

If I were given the task of hiring Purdue's next coach, here are some key factors I would consider.

A running list

Talent identification

First and foremost, I want my head coach to be responsible for putting together the squad. I view him more as a general manager who calls timeouts and has input into the game plan. I don't really care what kind of plan someone brings to Purdue; my head coach doesn't call plays. I'm fine with bringing in someone whose system might not work at Purdue, as long as he's willing to ditch the system (more on that later). I hire a talent evaluator and decision maker, not a system.

The ability to identify talent is what separates the top and bottom of Purdue's tier of college football. Oddly enough, it's something the elite schools don't have to do very often. When it comes to the transfer portal, Purdue is mainly shopping the section of guys looking to transfer from G5 (or FCS) or move down from one of the football factory schools in search of playing time. Then you have to factor in middle school and high school recruiting because you still need to bring in a combination of at least 15 juco and high school players (I'm not even sure how the new roster limits affect this number, there are too a lot of moving parts to keep an eye on right now). For my money, building a college roster is trickier than building an NFL roster, and that's where I want my coach to excel.

That doesn't necessarily mean I want a guy who brings in the most talented guys out there. I want a coach who can identify talent that best fits his program. Purdue will never consistently attract elite talent. They need a coach who can identify players with a few translatable elite traits and then deploy them accordingly. If Purdue needs a possession receiver, I want a coach who will go out and specifically target the exact type of possession receiver that fits his quarterback in his offense. The elite schools have the luxury of bringing in a bunch of generalists who can play anywhere. We wanted to bring in guys who can fill a role immediately and expand from there. I don't want a coach to take a guy and then try to figure it out as soon as he gets on campus because he's a 4* recruit or was productive at a position we don't need to fill.

Portal and recruitment friendly system

I want my new coach to have a portal-friendly program on both sides of the ball. For the most part, that means success with the stripped-down script. Roster turnover is inevitable, but I want to spend as little time as possible installing plays, and as much time as possible perfecting those plays. I can target a player in the portal, bring him in for spring training and get him rolling by fall camp.

In the event of a violation, this means that a kind of generic spread is executed. Personally, I like a quarterback run component to an offense and would lean toward a system that included QB runs, but I could be persuaded otherwise. I'm looking for a system that can accommodate the widest variety of skills and one that is flexible enough to transform with the selection. I want enough flexibility in my offense to accommodate the talent instead of the talent focusing on the system. Matt Painter does that well in basketball, and I think Purdue should look at that on the football field as well.

On defense it has shifted in recent years from a basic 4-3-4 or a 4-2-5 to a basic 3-3-5 or 3-2-6 and I want to follow that trend. I don't want to have to teach guys a new system from scratch. When I leave the portal, I'm looking for teams doing something similar. It's not a limiting factor, but if two guys are close, I'll take the guy who comes in with inside knowledge of my system. The less my coach has to learn the plays, the more time he can spend playing clean football.

I will work with the head coach to hire the offensive and defensive coordinators, and then those coordinators will be responsible for the offense and defense respectively. I want the coach to have input into the overall game plan in terms of themes (heavy running vs. heavy passing – heavy blitz vs. conservative), but under no circumstances do I want a play sheet in the hands of my coaches. There's too much going on in the game to divide his attention between play calling and coaching. I'm not looking for a football genius as a head coach, I'd much rather have one as a coordinator. What I look for in a head coach is a top manager, communicator, motivator and delegator. Obviously they need to know something about football, but I think the days of the head coach/coordinator will soon be consigned to the dustbin of college football history.