Barry Odom Not Wasting Any Time Building Winning Culture at Purdue

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Nobody needs to talk to Barry Odom about having a sense of urgency. The new Purdue football coach understands the importance of building a winning culture in West Lafayette in a short amount of time.

Spring practice began for the Boilermakers on Tuesday, a program that is welcoming in a lot of new faces, both on the coaching staff and on the roster. There was a lot of excitement about the return of football, but there was also a lot of purpose on the practice field.

"I think the most enjoyable part of the day is the two hours and change you get on the field with your team," Odom said after the team's first practice. "We're teachers, and the urgency that we need to move with to move this program forward — we don't have any time to waste. Our guys understand coaching-wise where we need to be, how we need to teach. The loudest we should be is celebrating our success, and then there's time for teaching and corrections."

Odom's job is not an easy one in West Lafayette. He's tasked with rebuilding a program that finished the 2024 campaign with a 1-11 record, suffering several blowout losses throughout the course of the season.

Although the coaching staff is new and the program welcomed in 40 players into the program ahead of spring practice, creating a new culture can still be a challenge. It expands further than the football field, too.

"I think it's how you walk, talk, eat, breathe, act," Odom said. "I'm not allowed to have a bad day. We've got to pour into our players, we have to serve them, give them and build them the foundation to be successful in every single area."

The process didn't begin on Tuesday when Purdue kicked off spring practice. It started back in December when Odom was hired to be the next leader of the program. But for the next month, players and coaches can start to apply some of those cultural principles to the football field.

By the end of spring ball and heading into summer workouts, On April 12 — the day of Purdue's annual spring game — Odom is hopeful that the program will be in much better shape than it was on March 4.

"We've got a long ways to go, but that's the beauty of it," Odom said. "You come in every day and our job is to make sure we make Purdue football better than it was yesterday."

Related stories on Purdue football