As a player, Bilal Marshall paved the wave for the Purdue Boilermakers wide receivers corps during Marshall's senior season.
Today, Marshall is poised to lead the next generation of Purdue wideouts.
Sources tell FootballScoop that Purdue coach Barry Odom is promoting Marshall to the team's on-field, full-time wide receivers coach. Marshall previously served the 2025 season as the assistant wide receivers coach, but Odom has been reimagining his staff following a 2-10 debut campaign in West Lafayette, Indiana.
After starring at Purdue last decade, Marshall briefly played professional football when he spent a season in the Canadian Football League for the Ottawa Red Blacks before he transitioned into coaching.
His rise has been a quick one.
A Miami, Florida, native, Marshall quickly landed a role in the Power Conferences when he was first hired into the West Virginia University staff in the 2020-21 seasons under former Mountaineers head man Neal Brown. Those moves came briefly after Marshall coached in the prep ranks in his native Florida.
But it didn't take long for Marshall to start carving a path as a full-time assistant coach. He soon moved from his supporting roles at West Virginia to become the wide receivers coach at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) at a time when the program was experiencing school-record success under head coach Scott Wachenheim as well as top offensive assistants Patrick Ashford and Billy Cosh. Ashford now is an offensive analyst at a Virginia program that just played for the ACC Championship and a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff had it won while Cosh has quickly turned around the Football Championship Subdivision Stony Brook program. There, Cosh in two seasons has won more games than Stony Brook did in its five seasons combined prior to his arrival.
Marshall has been heralded by coaches from Brown to current Troy head coach Gerad Parker for the combination of Marshall's ability to relate to players, hold them accountable but also teach technique; he's also been credited for being a dogged recruiter.
Purdue as a program is seeking to regain the competitive play and consistent winning it previously enjoyed under Jeff Brohm, who departed following the 2022 season to take over at his alma mater, Louisviile.
Ryan Walters was fired in his second season atop the program; Odom was hired after he turned around UNLV and helped guide the Runnin' Rebels into Mountain West Conference Championship contention.