Purdue Football: Barry (Odom) Raised a (Kevin) Kane

* If you’re wondering about the title, I stole most of it from Bruce Springsteen.

During the frigid winters in Finland, it’s common for people to maintain holes in ice-covered lakes and ponds for swimming. They sit in a sauna (a staple of Finnish life), and once they are sufficiently steamed and/or dry roasted, they sprint from the sauna and jump into the ice hole. The Finnish people consider it refreshing, and to be fair, I’m sure anything that gets your heart beating in a land featuring months of bleak darkness could be regarded as a life-affirming experience.

As someone who gets up at 6:00 am twice a week to swim in a pool that doesn’t quite meet my thermal demands, it sounds like torture. The Finns are truly built different (I would expect nothing less from a people who have a specific word in their language, kalsarikannit, that means “drinking alone, at home, in your underwear).

All of that is to say, writing about this Purdue football program in the midst of this Purdue basketball season is the blogging equivalent of jumping into a frozen lake after sitting in a warm sauna or “avanto” as the Fins call it.

To quote one of America’s true intellectual giants, “I’m only here so I don’t get fined.”

Raising (Kevin) Kane

(Doing my best Roger Daltrey impression) Meet the new defensive coordinator, same as the old defensive coordinator.

Kevin Kane is back for a second tour of duty in West Lafayette after bearing witness to the Ryan Walters train wreck as one of the few adults in the room. He was exiled to Minnesota last season, where he coached nickelbacks and outside linebackers for PJ Fleck. I assume he spent most of his time in Minneapolis thinking, “This guy is a bit much.”

His return has not been met with open arms by the Purdue sports media. Most folks can’t seem to get past the fact that Kane, for the most part, called Purdue’s 2024 defense. That team was so bad that entire graduate-level leadership courses been formed to study what complete failure looks like in a practical setting. Bringing back the defensive coordinator from that coaching staff is certainly a, let’s say, controversial decision from Coach Odom.

Personally, I don’t think it matters.

First off, I don’t think Kane is as bad as the 2024 defense portends. Sometimes being on a bad coaching staff makes you a bad coach. When you reach this level of football, everyone on the coaching staff needs to be on the same page. Fostering that coordination is the head coach’s job, and as I mentioned above and numerous times before. Ryan Walters was a bad head football coach.

For a parallel, I look at Darrell Hazell’s 2016 coaching staff. I’m not sure how he managed to put together what now looks like an elite staff, without any payoff in the win column, but check it out what some of those staff members are up to these days:

Marcus Freeman

at Purdue: Co-Defensive Coordinator

Today: Notre Dame head coach, top target for the New York Giants coaching search (allegedly)

Tim Lester

at Purdue: QB Coach

Today: Iowa offensive coordinator after six seasons as Western Michigan’s head coach

Gerard Parker

at Purdue: WR Coach

Today: Troy Head coach, former West Virginia and Notre Dame OC

DeAndre Smith

at Purdue: RB Coach

Today: RB Coach for the Indianapolis Colts

Darrell Hazell was an awful head coach, and that probably had something to do with some otherwise successful coaches failing in West Lafayette. Kane has been successful at every stop along his coaching career, with the glaring exception of his two years under Ryan Walters. In terms of coaching ineptitude, I didn’t think it was possible to knock Hazell from his lofty perch, but Walters managed to join him at the summit.

Again, I’m not saying this is going to work.

I’m not even saying this is a good hire.

I do think Kane is taking some strays from the media and fan base that would be better aimed in other directions (like player retention). At the same time, I understand that Kane is an easy and convenient target for the angst surrounding the program.

Second, while I have no iron-clad proof for this claim, it certainly looks like Purdue named Barry Odom their new defensive coordinator and brought back Kevin Kane to help out. If you’re looking for a reason why Kane was the choice, it’s probably because this isn’t going to be a “here’s the defense, good luck!” type of assignment. You’re not going to bring in an impact defensive coordinator to share coordinating duties. What you do is bring in a guy like Kevin Kane on a reasonable contract to help out with some of the heavy lifting.

At minimum, Purdue is going to have a defensive coordinator, Orthrus (the two-headed dog monster from Greek Mythology), and potentially a full Cerverus (the three-headed dog monster from Greek Mythology who guarded the underworld, and Orthrus’s older brother), with new senior defensive analyst Dave Steckel adding his experience into the mix. This is going to be a group project, and Kane won’t be leading it.

Dave Doeren, Sonny Dykes, and Bret Bielema have put their trust in Kane throughout his coaching career. I don’t see how adding his voice to the defensive staff could be a bad thing. I would feel differently if Kane were hired to run the show, but I don’t think that’s the case. If it is, I’ll write a follow-up.

Until then, I’m returning to the sauna that is Purdue basketball. I’ve had quite enough ice swimming for one day.