PURDUE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 10, 2024

Barry Odom

Mike Berghoff

Mung Chiang

Press Conference

MIKE BOBINSKI: Welcome, everybody, thank you all for being with us today. It's a great turnout and nice to see everyone. It's a really exciting day, Purdue Football today, turning the page in an incredibly positive direction.

Before we get into all that, I want to first thank President Chang, board chair Mike Berghoff, incoming board chair Gary Lehman, for their support and engagement through the process.

These things don't happen easily or quickly or without the need to sort of fight your way through a lot of different circumstances, and couldn't do it without the support of these football coaches, and so I'm very, very grateful for their commitment to our success at Purdue and Purdue athletic s is really unmatched and I'm very, very grateful.

So like to invite President Chang up right now to share a few thoughts with us. President Chang.

PRESIDENT MUNG CHIANG: Good morning, Boilermakers. How are you doing this morning? "Boiler Up" to all of you.

Now today is a momentous day for Purdue Football. We welcome Coach Barry Odom with great excitement and enthusiasm to Purdue family as our new football head coach and we know that Coach Odom, you've been head coach at both Missouri and UNLV. Congratulations on what an incredible turnaround at UNLV, what an incredible season, 10-2 regular season. You took the team to the Championship Game of a very competitive conference, and ranked-top 20 in CFP and AP polls.

You've won a lot of games in the other two conferences. You're going to win a lot of games here in Big Ten. And to your beautiful family here, warm welcome to the Purdue family and to the greater Lafayette community. You're going to find this very much like your birthplaces, and Midwest hospitality and humility.

We a lot of to outstanding relationship between you and the community and we really appreciate your being here. Thank you.

The country is going through a lot of changes and turbulence coming up and we are fortunate at Purdue to have the experience, integrity and intelligence of athletic director Mike Bobinski. Thank you, Mike. And thank you for recruiting one of the best football coaches in America to poured here.

On this momentous day, I've got three things to say to all of you: Support, compete, and character. Athletics is an essential at defining part of what Purdue is about. We have a glorious history in football. Today we are going to revitalize that.

Athletics is such an important part of what Purdue stands for, what it means to all of the Boilermakers out there, the board of trustees and myself, we are going to invest more than ever before in athletics, we are going to support all our teams.

We're going to support you, Coach Odom, and your staff and your student athletes. This is also about winning. Here in Mackey Arena, we remember eight months ago, the Boilermakers took the men's basketball to the National Championship Game. How many remember that?

Coach Odom, the Boilermakers are hungry for success and excellence in everything that we choose to do. We have the hunger for success in football, and I know you're going to be with me in the coming new season.

The Boilermakers will always have the grit to fight and to come back and compete and to win and to win with Boilermaker spirit upholding with integrity, sportsmanship that reflect the character and the value of Boilermakers. Coach Odom, let's go win it and boiler up.

Now this university, our Purdue, is blessed with an extremely stable, dedicated board of trustees chaired over the past nine years by Chairman Mike Berghoff with full continuity transitioning last year to chairman elect Gary Lehman. Thank you, Gary.

Mike, I know how much this means to you personally. You care about this place like no one else. We all care about it, but you care about it deeper than any of us. You are like two times infinity. That's the equation for the nerves this morning.

And Mike, thank you for your instrumental in securing the recruiting of this amazing coach.

So let's give it up for Chairman Berghoff, Mike.

MIKE BERGHOFF: Good morning, everybody. Thanks for those kind words. I want to talk about three different groups in a participate to make this possible and I want to start with the president and the board.

Coaching searches are not suited for committee work. They move quickly. They have to cover a lot of territory, and so it requires the president's office and the full board to completely trust a small group of people who are pursuing our next Coach. I want to thank the board of trustees, our next chair Gary, and Mike Boehlje will be the vice chair, and the rest of the group who acted quickly to support all of this and the president to allow this search team to do the work that brought us Barry. That's not the case in a lot of places. There's not that kind of alignment. Too many people want to get involved and it ends up pimping the outcome negatively.

The second group I want to address are our fans and students. I want to okay knowledge the impact that you all have had with our football program. Your attendance at the games at season ticket holders and as students has been incredible especially in a year nothing was going the way we wanted, nothing changed. The place was full of excitement. I tell you, you are going to be rewarded near for that loyalty. Coach notices, and he notices the importance and he is confident about the success we are going to have next year.

And finally, I want to recognize Mike Bobinski. I had very little to do with this. He led this the search. He directed it. Almost all of the phone calls went through him and the result was because of his hard work and experience and we're lucky to have him.

I also want to thank the staff involved who worked behind the scenes to make this happen. Thank you all for that. I'll turn back to Mike to introduce Coach. Thanks.

MIKE BOBINSKI: I thought when you get into these things you evaluate the potential pool of candidates, when you know you have an opportunity to opening you work through that process and here at Purdue, we evaluate against a certain set of criteria, and they are pretty standard things. But I'll run it through pretty quickly.

First and foremost, we want integrity, someone who is going to be an ethical leader who has high character and represents that in everything they do.

Secondarily, someone who respects the academic orientation at Purdue. This is college football, and academics are still the first and foremost thing that we do. Making sure that that is a primary focus of our head coach is really important so we work hard against that.

The work ethic, as I said many times, this is a really good job but it's not an easy job. Big Ten is no joke. It's 18 teams that are all competing really, really aggressively to be great and so this is going to require somebody that's willing to roll up their sleeves and get after it each and every day.

Intelligence matters. Being able to be strategic and being able to find solutions to things when it's not necessarily clear is also really important. So you've got to have somebody who has got the capacity to think through situations and then finally history of success and growth.

There's nothing like knowing what winning looks like. It just makes a difference. If you haven't done it, you don't really understand what it takes, the price that you have to pay to be successful.

So once you get through that qualified -- you determine a qualified pool of football coaches, for us here at Purdue, and we did that, we found a number of folks that we thought were qualified to be our next head coach, the most important thing at that point is to determine who truly has a passion to be here at Purdue, to do our job, who has a vision for success at Purdue, not what it's like to win at Alabama or Texas but to win here at Purdue and a commitment and a belief in what's possible here at Purdue.

As we work through this, very similar to recruiting, we have learned this in every sport that we have. When you bring young people to Purdue that are truly committed to the place and want the full Purdue experience, that's when we have our greatest success. We can't ever talk anybody into it and think we are going to land in a great place. We have to have people that have a burning desire and a passion to be here.

Once this process began, it was clear that, one, Coach stood out above all when it came to having that desire to be at Purdue to lead this football program at this university and that was Coach Barry Odom, and I was very, very grateful, and we should all be very grateful for that.

Once we identified, that, we started looking deeper at Coach Brohm Odom. And you guys have probably all read some of his history at this point but the football journey is incredible.

He is a tremendous player, was a linebacker at Missouri back in the day and immediately got into high school football coaching. And before that, though, actually, he worked in the Missouri version of the John Purdue club and did development work and knows how to do that. Never a bad thing.

Became a high school football coach and then a graduate assistant at Missouri, and director of recruiting at Missouri, and director of operations at Missouri and secondary coach at Missouri. And then he became the defensive coordinator at Memphis, back to Missouri as defensive coordinator, and then head coach at Missouri, at honestly a very young age in the SEC.

So we have a gentleman here who has really touched every base along the way and then became the defensive coordinator at Arkansas and then finally back as a head coach at UNLV. Grew and learned from every experience and I think that's the key to success in life.

We all go through a journey, and as long as you are open-minded and aware and willing to grow and learn from every situation that you're put in, you ultimately land in a really, really good place. And I can tell you that I think Coach Odom has very intentionally grown from every experience that he's had and that's how we landed on somebody with such a great skill set and such great experience.

What was accomplished at UNLV these last couple years was nothing short of remarkable. That was a place that had zero tradition of success, zero winning culture, just none of it, literally none of it and to go in there and immediately win nine games the first year, ten games the second year, is one of the really incredible college football stories of these recent times. It is nothing short of remarkable and we are very, very fortunate that he now is going to bring that same skill set and that same vision here to Purdue.

What that shows me is that Coach Odom, and I believe this, he brings a very unique combination of an old school traditional football toughness and mindset with ability to operate and adapt to today's college football environment. He has intentionally grown from every experience he's had, and that's how we landed on somebody with such a great skill set and such great experience.

What was accomplished at UNLV these last couple years is nothing short of remarkable. That is a place that had zero tradition of success, zero winning culture, just none of it. Literally none of it, and to go in there and immediately win nine games the first year, ten games the second year, is one of the really incredible college football stories of these recent times.

It is nothing short of remarkable and we are very, very fortunate that he now is willing to bring that same skill set and that same vision here to Purdue.

What that shows me is that Coach Odom, and I believe this, he brings a very unique combination of an old school, traditional football toughness and mindset with ability to operate and adapt to today's college football environment.

Again, the very best coaches in our country have done that. If you look at, and I'm not going to put these comparisons out there, but Coach Saban in Alabama in football, Coach Krzyzewski in basketball, and Coach Painter in basketball here at Purdue have grown and adapted to the environment around them.

It isn't just, this is what I do, and we're going to do regardless. You have to grow and adapt to succeed in today's circumstances, and I think Coach Brohm has proved that in the last couple years in living color at UNLV, at a place that didn't have a tradition of success.

The style of play will be one that will be really welcome here at Purdue. We'll be a tough hard-nosed disciplined football team. When we take the field, no one will play harder than we will, and I think that's exactly what Purdue people look for. The ability to put together a staff will be unquestionably done at a high level.

Coach has been in the football world for every day since he got out of college and his network, his contacts, his ability to bring coaches with him from UNLV and then attract the right people to fill in the rest of the staff at a high level is going to be very apparent very quickly.

Finally he's a great family man and you learn that very quickly. His lovely wife, Tia, sons, J.T., Garrett, chairman of the board, Anna, are great people. We had a little breakfast this morning in the conference room, and we all grabbed our food. And Anna Lockwood, took the seat right at the head of the table. She knows exactly where she belongs and she ran the breakfast like you'd expect her to.

So who Barry is, what he does, and how he does it I believe will resonate point Purdue community in a very positive way. I'm tremendously excited for today and what he'll bring to Purdue football, the impact he'll have on our football player players, our community and in the entire Purdue family will be just something special to see. I can't wait to get going.

And without any further ado, it is my great pleasure to welcome head coach, Barrow Odom, to out Purdue family and his great family. Coach Odom.

BARRY ODOM: What an honor to be here standing in front of you guys today. I want to start by saying many my wife and my kids, are thrilled for this opportunity. We are excited to be in the community and part of this wonderful university.

You look at the values of Purdue University and the alignment of geographically in the midwestern part of the United States, we are thrilled to be here and we know what is the fabric of this community. We know what the fabric of this great university is, and we are excited to be a huge part of that on making sure that we do our job to put Purdue Football on the national stage every single week as we get started building this program. I would certainly like to thank President Mung Chiang on all the work he has done, the board of trustee, specifically chair Mike Berghoff, thank you, and vice-chair Gary Lehman.

When we landed two nights ago we had the opportunity to get together with a number of the board of trustees and I could feel the alignment and I could see and feel the fashion that they have for Purdue University, the state and for our football program.

I believe that alignment and partnership are so vital for success, and I want to thank director of athletics Mike Bobinski for all that he has done not only through this process. But then since I've started just a few hours ago, he's been by my side every single step of the way; and the alignment and partnership that we have to chase championships in every area of this program, I will be grateful for forever.

His leadership is aligned with mine in how we are going to build a championship team and it's going to happen very, very quickly. I'm excited to build a program shown in the great fabric of this community, a very welcoming Midwest community.

When this job came open, I look at it as one of the elite jobs in college football for a number of reasons: The academic prestige that is with this university, the geographic location and the ability to recruit and attract high-level student athletes that are aligned with the visions of hard work, with character, with vision, and then the ability to compete in the Big Ten Conference, which is obviously the strongest conference in all of college football.

You look back at the great football history that Purdue has had in recent. Obviously with Coach Tiller and the great success and the championships that he had, and the transformation and the impact that he had in college football, is something that I watched and admired from afar.

And then most recently with Coach Brohm and the success he's had. I know Coach, and we went against each other two different times on the field. You look at the cradle of quarterbacks and den of defensive ends and the culture that is here and built, I am excited to take over and grow to the next stage.

I think you look at the experience that you have not only in life but in the opportunity to be a leader and the opportunity to get in front of a group of 105 student athletes and have an impact on those guys. I'm thankful for you guys this morning to be here. You'd better not be missing a final. We've got work to do, and we understand that. I had a chance to meet these guys yesterday for a team meeting and look forward to meeting every single one of them before they get out of town with their finals being over.

We talked about the structure of how we will do things as a program and we will all be defined by our habits, the winning habits we have every step of the way. We are defined by those academically, socially and how you prepare on the field.

I would like to talk for a moment about the influences that you have as a grow in this profession, and I've been fortunate to be around really great people. In the short time that I've been here, I see that this is a special, special place. The former players that I've had a chance to coach, I've got relationships with forever all over the country. They are always welcome here. The former players at Purdue University, the doors will be open for you.

And I'm going to do a great job on representing what you have built here long before I came, and feel the responsibility to get us back to being a proud program that's competing for championships.

I had a chance to have really good coaches over my career, starting in high school with a guy named Jerry Gamble and Larry McBroom; and played at the University of Missouri as a student athlete under a hard-nosed coach named Larry Smith and then a Hall of Fame Coach named Gary Pinkel, I had a chance to work with for a number of years at the University of Missouri. Justin Fuente at Memphis and Sam Pittman at the University of Arkansas.

Then you look at how you collectively build who you are as a team, who you are as a head coach. You learn from your experiences, from your ups, from your downs, and then you apply it to the next opportunity with this team. And I'm excited to get started on January 13th as we start our winter conditioning program.

I think you also look at leadership and the capacity of athletics directors, and obviously with Mike Bobinski and the things that we're going to do together, I couldn't ask for a better partner in going to work with them.

I had a chance after we first talked to call around in the business on guys that I had a chance to work with over the engineers, Joe Castiglione at University of Oklahoma, Michael Den who is retired in the business, they were tremendous in my leadership role and how I grew in the profession.

But they were also one of the reasons why I was initially attracted to Mike on his leadership style, and the validation of what that looked like once we started developing our relationship. I think collectively together things are alined here. It's going to be a quick turnaround.

I do not believe in rebuild projects. I believe in getting the best out of the program and the guys that we have right now and winning immediately. You look at the opportunity for student engagement filled with excitement. We need the students, we need you to help us go achieve the things that we're going to achieve.

My style of football and brands are going to be very, very explosive play on offense and we are going to score points. I'm labeled as a defensive guy but if you look at my history on the offensive coordinators that we've had, the progress that we had an that side of the ball we are going to be explosive and we are going to play complementary football.

And on defense we are going to be a very, very tough aggressive attacking defense. And then we will put together a special teams unit that will be one of the most elite in college football. Playing complementary football in all three phases, hard, smart and tough, disciplined brand of football that we are going to bring back to Ross-Ade Stadium.

We walked through as a family yesterday. We walked through Tiller Tunnel and what a great experience that was and I could close my eyes and visualize and feel the excitement that's building on what we are going to build in that stadium.

Together we are going to put together an elite staff that will greatly increase the student athlete experience. I will get the best coaches here to coach, to mentor, guide, to lead, to love our student athletes to be successful in every area.

Our program is going to be build on a 12-month structured plan for success in every single area of our student athletes lives. Our habits will define, us and we will not back down from anything, creating opportunities and ultimately the goal is to win a championship. Playing meaningful games in November, chasing a Big Ten title and everything that comes after that.

I'm honored to be your head coach. I'm excited what we're going to build together. We're getting started, and it's going to happen fast. I would just like to end this with saying, "Boiler Up."