Purdue expects multiple coaches to help team move forward after firing defensive coordinator

Coach Barry Odom had seen enough from Purdue's defense over the last three games to recognize the Boilermakers needed someone else calling the plays.

He won't say yet who will replace defensive coordinator Kevin Kane on Saturday at No. 16 Iowa.

One day after firing Kane just nine games into his second stint in that capacity with the Boilermakers, Odom explained why he made the move now.

“I've never believed in a ‘knee-jerk reaction,’ but I think we were missing in some areas and again I'm not pointing the finger at Kevin,” Odom said Monday. “It's all of us. We needed a lift in that area, and I think, for whatever reason, we hadn't gotten back to the level of playing like we did against Illinois or Minnesota in all three phases. But defensively, we did not really have the level of play (needed).”

Those two games are the only conference wins Purdue (3-6, 2-4 Big Ten) has in the past three seasons. And since those back-to-back games, the Boilermakers have given up at least 31 points in each of the three successive losses.

It wasn't a new struggle for this defense.

Six of Purdue's first eight Football Bowl Subdivision foes have topped the 30-point mark and three of them could make the 12-team playoff field — No. 3 Notre Dame, No. 4 UCLA and No. 11 Wake Forest.

But the problem ran even deeper.

In Maryland's 34-29 victory in West Lafayette on Saturday, the defense allowed scoring plays of 44, 75 and 87 yards. The Terrapins' two other scores were set up by a 56-yard kickoff return and a lost fumble at the Boilermakers' 2-yard line as they snapped a 13-game Big Ten losing streak.

Afterward, Odom appeared more frustrated than usual. He said he met with Kane to tell him he had been fired Sunday morning.

“You are what you are, but you take five plays away from that game the other day, we're in a different situation,” Odom said. “We also, if we score touchdowns instead of field goals, then we break it open early on, so it all goes hand in hand. We just had not made the progress in the last couple weeks, defensively, like we needed to.”

Odom hired Kane in December to fix a defense that finished last season ranked among the worst teams in the nation in almost every category.

Through nine games, though, not much has changed.

Among the 138 FBS teams, Purdue heads into next weekend's game against the Hawkeyes (7-2, 4-2, No. 19) ranked 99th rushing defense (170.8 yards per game), 116th in pass defense (244.7), 123rd in total defense (415.4), 124th in scoring defense (32.33 points), 128th in red zone defense (94.1% scoring percentage) and 131st in third-down efficiency allowed (47.1%).

Things didn't go much better during Kane's first stint as Purdue's defensive coordinator. The Boilermakers went 5-19 overall and 3-15 in league play in 2023 and 2024 and endured the two most lopsided losses in his final season working with Ryan Walters — 66-7 to Notre Dame and 66-0 at Indiana.

Kane spent last season as a position coach at Minnesota before returning to Purdue. Now he's out of a job again.

Odom said he has not made any additional staff changes other than he and two defensive analysts — Neal Renna and Dave Steckel — teaming up to replace Kane as the linebackers coach. But Odom, a former defensive coordinator, would not say if he would call the defenses moving forward.

"I will (let you know) after the game," he said. "We have to coach better, we have to schematically make sure our players understand within the call what their job is, what they need to do. We need to simplify it where they can go play fast, and then we have to go execute."

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