While he may not publicly admit it, when Purdue football coach Ryan Walters talks about how he built relationships with and throughout his team, it sounds like he borrowed a page from Remember The Titans.
In the movie, coach Herman Boone, portrayed by Denzel Washington went to great lengths to build relationships among his T.C. Williams football team, including having them room with someone of another race and someone they didn’t know much about. According to Walters, that is exactly what the Purdue football team did this offseason.
And, it has paid off nicely heading into Saturday’s contest against Indiana State.
“I would say that this is probably the closest team I’ve been around, and that’s not only as a head coach, but as an assistant as well. I think we did a lot of things in the winter, in the spring, in the summer, to provide opportunities for organic relationships to form,” Walters told the media this week.
The Boilermakers visited Escape Rooms, took part in “the most competitive” dodgeball tournament Walters had ever seen and just got to know each other a little bit better.
“We did a lot of things where you had an opportunity to be vulnerable and talk about things that weren’t football related to get to dive deeper into the individual,” Walters said.
“Everybody’s going through different things and different walks of life, and everybody’s got their own problems. So, you kind of get to know why people act the way they do, why guys might communicate a certain way. Anytime you have that background and that understanding just allows for more efficient communication.”
Not only did Walters enjoy the events, so, too, did the Purdue football coordinators.
Defensive coordinator Kevin Kane said being together allowed the staff an opportunity to learn more about each player.
“In modern college football, whatever team can gel the fastest has a chance to go have a lot of success, because there’s a lot of new faces coming in there. And we’ve done a lot of things to create bonds and to create teamwork, and how to be a great teammate, and just to know each other, to kind of know what buttons to press, what not to press. So I feel like our guys have gotten to know each other a lot, not just over the summer and spring, but especially for fall camp,” Kane said.
Offensive coordinator Graham Harrell echoed those sentiments, adding it was Walters who was a big proponent in getting players on campus early.
“Throughout winter, almost the whole roster was here. I thought that was something that coach Walters put a big emphasis on, was trying to get most of our roster here in January,” Harrell said. “With the evolving landscape of college football, and having more new players than you used to have, with the transfer portal and things like that, getting guys here in January is a big advantage. Because now you can start to create your football team and get a whole lot of reps with each other throughout that spring before the summer starts.”
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