Barry Odom Says Indiana Is a Blueprint for Success, But It's Not That Simple

Barry Odom is right.

Indiana's 16-0 season that ended as the first, first-time national champion in nearly three decades should, as the Purdue coach said at Big Ten Media Days, give "every player, coach and every fan base hope, vision and belief that it can happen."

But he's wrong if he believes that IU's success suddenly opens a path to top-level success for his program.

Curt Cignetti's Formula Looks Simple on the Surface, but Few Coaches Can Replicate It

Just so that you, reader of this column, don't accuse me of misinterpreting what Odom said in front of the Big Ten Media Days crowd, here's the clip that the aforementioned quote referred to.

"It should give every player, every coach, every fan base hope, vision and belief that it can happen"#Purdue football head coach Barry Odom was asked about #IU football's turnaround and how much that changes the landscape for other teams across the country. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/jlXy6bw2Zu
— WISH-TV News (@WISHNews8) July 29, 2026

Odom made a politically correct statement that aligned with what plenty of other Big Ten coaches said in Chicago.

Minnesota coach PJ Fleck likened Cignetti's viral call-out of Big Ten rivals to Babe Ruth while Illinois coach Bret Bielema gave IU the ultimate stamp of approval.

"Because, kind of what's going on right now in the bigger picture of college football, that is single-handedly the most impressive story that I've witnessed in my college career," Bielema said of Indiana under Cignetti. "I know what they did to us, right?

I know what Indiana did to Purdue in Year 1 of the Odom era. It ran the Boilermakers off the field in a 56-3 beatdown that was over before the eventual national champs made the short drive to West Lafayette.

(If you tell me, "but it was 7-3 at the end of the first quarter!" go take a lap and come back when you realize that Purdue's only hope to win that game was if one of their prized astronauts came back from space with a meteor in hand.)

Is Year 1 everything? Of course not. Nick Saban lost to Louisiana-Monroe in Year 1. Kirby Smart lost to Vanderbilt in Year 1. Shoot, Paul "Bear" Bryant coached at four different schools and never led any of them to a ranked finish in Year 1.

But Odom's Year 1 was lacking a key element in this era

That is, any sort of proof of concept in an era when that's everything for rebuilds like the one that Odom took on.

Yes, that roster needed to be gutted in the wake of the Ryan Walters mess. You could argue that it was even messier than the one that Cignetti inherited at IU for the simple fact that at least the Hoosiers won a single Big Ten game in the season before he arrived in Bloomington.

Ergo, 54 transfers flocked to West Lafayette with position battles wide open and proceeded to ... still go winless in the Big Ten.

Mind you, that was with the help of eight players who followed Odom from UNLV, where he had a 19-8 mark over two seasons and was deemed "successful enough to earn another Power Conference head coaching opportunity."

Whether Odom truly earned a 6-year, $39 million contract with an additional $3 million poach fee to UNLV is, well, debatable. Personally, it seemed like an overpay for a guy who came to Purdue with four seasons as a Power Conference head coach and a 13-19 mark in conference play (13-28 currently) and a 1-9 record vs. AP Top 25 foes (1-14 currently).

You'll tell me that the jury is still out on Odom. I'll tell you that Purdue's Year 1 proof of concept included producing one single all-conference player, and it was third-team All-Big Ten linebacker Mani Powell, who had already played in Odom's defense both at UNLV and Arkansas.

Whoops. My bad.

Did I mention that punter Jack McCallister got a second-team All-Big Ten nod? Shame on me for skipping past the part where Purdue punted well in 2025.

Now compare that to IU's six All-Big Ten selections in Year 1 under Cignetti, which included four James Madison transfers, a retained IU team captain (Mike Katic) and veteran Ohio quarterback transfer Kurtis Rourke, who finished ninth in the 2024 Heisman Trophy voting.

On second thought, don't compare those Year 1 rosters. One new coaching staff nailed the all-important player evaluation element, and one team was Purdue. The latter is still searching for its first NFL Draft pick and Power Conference win under the current coaching staff.

There's great irony when and where Purdue's last Power Conference win came

Nov. 25, 2023 was the last game of the pre-Cignetti era at IU, and it was a comeback victory for the Boilermakers. Once upon a time, those two teams could meet, play for an underrated college football trophy, have fans argue about who was less of a Big Ten cellar dweller and move on to basketball season.

Times have changed.

A short 32 months later, IU is the defending champs with a ramped-up NIL budget — the type of thing that gets improved when people like Mark Cuban see a Year 1 proof of concept — while Purdue is grasping at possible signs of hope wherever it can find them.

It won't find hope in the various unofficial preseason polls, where it was picked to finish last in the Big Ten (again), nor will it find it in the Athlon preseason All-Big Ten team, where Purdue's lone mention came courtesy of fourth-team selection Charles Correa.

You can say those things don't matter and hark back to IU's lack of preseason buzz going into Year 1 of the Cignetti era. That was also his first year at a Power Conference program, which was why the words "I win. Google me," were factually correct, but met with Cignetti-like eyebrow raises by the outside world because of where that took place.

If Odom was going to come anywhere near that path, we would've at least seen some signs of it in Year 1 and not a 2-10 team that ranked in the bottom 20 in FBS on both sides of the ball.

What Curt Cignetti pulled off in Bloomington was special for a reason. And no, not just anyone can do it.

Add us as a preferred source on Google