The biggest choice a first-time head coach with a defensive background will make is his offensive coordinator hire, and new Purdue head man Ryan Walters told us a lot about himself with his choice. According to ESPN's Adam Rittenberg, Graham Harrell is leaving West Virginia to run the offense in West Lafayette.
The son of a Texas high school coach and the most productive of Mike Leach's Texas Tech quarterbacks, Harrell played briefly in the NFL, then entered coaching as the wide receivers coach on Leach's Washington State staff in 2014. By 2016 he was the offensive coordinator at North Texas and, when Kliff Kingsbury spring boarded from USC offensive coordinator to Arizona Cardinals head coach in the winter of 2019, Harrell replaced Kingsbury in Los Angeles.
Harrell spent three seasons with the Trojans, and then spent the 2022 season at West Virginia.
Harrell's offenses have ranked among the top 25 in passing five times in seven seasons, and so hiring the former Red Raider gunslinger indicates Walters won't let his defensive priors dictate what his offense attempts to accomplish. Harrell's North Texas offense of 2017, for instance, finished second in college football with 1,037 total plays -- although a typical Harrell attack ranks in the 40s in snaps.
The best protection for a defense, after all, is an offensive touchdown.
The man indirectly responsible for the Air Raid revolution -- and, thus, Harrell's career -- made a similar choice back in the day. Bob Stoops, a first-time head coach and a career defensive coordinator at the time, hired Leach as his first offensive coordinator at Oklahoma in 1999, and changed college football in the process.
Historically, Purdue is at its best when the Boilermakers push the envelope in the passing game. Joe Tiller won 87 games in West Lafayette with an ahead-of-its-time passing attack, run most famously by Drew Brees, who took Purdue to the Rose Bowl in the 2000 season and once fired 83 passes in a game.
More immediately, Purdue ranked first or second in the Big Ten in passing each of the past five seasons under former head coach Jeff Brohm.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.
Source: #Purdue is set to hire Graham Harrell as its offensive coordinator, under new coach Ryan Walters. Harrell spent this season as #WestVirginia's OC after a three-year run in the same role at #USC.
— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) December 16, 2022