Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 4-7
Wyoming’93LPurdue’97W’98W’99L’00L’01L’02W’03L’04L’06L’07W
Show all 11 games
1993Copper BowlL 17-52Purdue
1997Alamo BowlW 33-20
1998Alamo BowlW 37-34
1999Outback BowlL 25-28
2000Rose BowlL 24-34
2001Sun BowlL 27-33
2002Sun BowlW 34-24
2003Capital One BowlL 27-34
2004Sun BowlL 23-27
2006Champs Sports BowlL 7-24
2007Motor City BowlW 51-48
Report card
Top-quarter offense — 78th percentile.
Purdue, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
3-3 against his rivals at Wyoming. Just 1-4 against Ron McBride.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
10-2 against his rivals at Purdue. Just 1-6 against Lloyd Carr.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
13-5 against his rivals. Just 1-4 against Ron McBride.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
2,661 run and pass snaps at Purdue, 2004–2008, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points. Play-by-play starts in 2004, so his earlier seasons there aren’t in it.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Four numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Followed him here
Wyoming→
Purdue1997Players who transferred from his old program to his new one through the portal in the same year he made the move. Name-matching across data sources misses some, so every count is a floor, not an exact number.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2008 roster arrived on his watch — 35 of 35 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (1997-2008) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 17 of 100 signees (17%) across his 2001–2008 classes on record (his tenure ran 1997–2008), drawn from 21 states in all. Next: IN (14).
18% of his signees come from TX and its 4 border states (LA 1).
Off this map: 6 signees to the west (CA 6).
- median hometown distance
- 665 mi
- within 100 mi
- 14%
- within 500 mi
- 48%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 10%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. None can be traced to who brought them in — there’s no roster record for these players here. 2 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | R3.03 | Alex Magee | Defensive Tackle |  Kansas City Chiefs | Estimated |
| 2009 | R6.28 | Curtis Painter | Quarterback |  Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2008 | R1.30 | Dustin Keller | Tight End |  New York Jets | Estimated |
| 2008 | R3.29 | Cliff Avril | Defensive End |  Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2008 | R4.35 | Stanford Keglar | Outside Linebacker |  Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2007 | R1.26 | Anthony Spencer | Linebacker |  Dallas Cowboys | Estimated |
| 2007 | R5.12 | Uche Nwaneri | Offensive Guard |  Jacksonville Jaguars | Estimated |
| 2007 | R7.13 | Mike Otto | Offensive Tackle | Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | R2.22 | Bernard Pollard | Defensive Back | Kansas City Chiefs | Estimated |
| 2006 | R4.30 | Ray Edwards | Defensive End |  Minnesota Vikings | Estimated |
| 2006 | R5.02 | Rob Ninkovich | Defensive End |  New Orleans Saints | Estimated |
| 2006 | R5.34 | Charles Davis | Tight End |  Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| 2005 | R4.05 | Kyle Orton | Quarterback |  Chicago Bears | Estimated |
| 2004 | R3.03 | Nick Hardwick | Center |  San Diego Chargers | Estimated |
| 2004 | R3.04 | Stuart Schweigert | Defensive Back |  Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2004 | R3.06 | Gilbert Gardner | Linebacker | Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2004 | R3.33 | Landon Johnson | Linebacker |  Cincinnati Bengals | Estimated |
| 2004 | R4.02 | Shaun Phillips | Defensive End | San Diego Chargers | Estimated |
| 2004 | R4.20 | Niko Koutouvides | Linebacker |  Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 2004 | R6.07 | Kelly Butler | Offensive Tackle | Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2004 | R6.24 | Craig Terrill | Defensive Tackle | Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 2004 | R7.22 | Jacques Reeves | Defensive Back | Dallas Cowboys | Estimated |
| 2003 | R6.18 | Joe Odom | Linebacker | Chicago Bears | Estimated |
| 2002 | R3.24 | Akin Ayodele | Defensive End | Jacksonville Jaguars | Estimated |
| 2002 | R4.11 | Travis Dorsch | Place Kicker |  Cincinnati Bengals | Estimated |
| 2001 | R2.01 | Drew Brees | Quarterback |  San Diego Chargers | Estimated |
| 2001 | R2.17 | Matt Light | Offensive Guard |  New England Patriots | Estimated |
| 2001 | R5.05 | Vinny Sutherland | Wide Receiver |  Atlanta Falcons | Estimated |
| 2001 | R5.15 | Chukky Okobi | Center |  Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| 2001 | R7.01 | Brandon Gorin | Offensive Tackle | San Diego Chargers | Estimated |
| 2000 | R6.29 | Michael Hawthorne | Defensive Back |  New Orleans Saints | Estimated |
| 2000 | R6.35 | David Nugent | Defensive Tackle | New England Patriots | Estimated |
| 1999 | R3.28 | Chike Okeafor | Defensive End |  San Francisco 49ers | Estimated |
| 1999 | R4.16 | Rosevelt Colvin | Defensive End |  Chicago Bears | Estimated |
| 1998 | R3.09 | Brian Alford | Wide Receiver |  New York Giants | Estimated |
| 1998 | R5.17 | Mark Fischer | Center |  Washington Redskins | Estimated |
| 1998 | R7.29 | Edwin Watson | Running Back |  Green Bay Packers | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Builder meaningfully raised a program that wasn't one · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
4th-best Purdue tenure of 21 by the numbers.
Followed Jim Colletto (1991–1996) · succeeded by Danny Hope (2009–2012).
| Season | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||||||
| Record | 9-3 | 9-4 | 7-5 | 8-4 | 6-6 | 7-6 | 9-4 | 7-5 | 5-6 | 8-6 | 8-5 | 4-8 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | — | L bowl | W bowl | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 87 | 65 | 73 | 79 | 35 | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 61 | 33 | 0 | 62 | 80 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 50.3 | 44.2 | 50.3 | 50.7 | 54.0 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 45.7 | 32.6 | 49.4 | 49.1 | 47.9 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 22.7 | 26.3 | 25.6 | 22.9 | 35.4 | |
6th-best Wyoming tenure of 22 by the numbers.
Followed Paul Roach (1987–1990) · succeeded by Dana Dimel (1997–1999).
| Season | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||
| Record | 4-6-1 | 5-7 | 8-4 | 6-6 | 6-5 | 10-2 | |
| Postseason | — | — | L bowl | — | — | L bowl | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
6 NFL Draft picks: Ryan Yarborough (1994), Ryan Christopherson (1995), John Burrough (1995), Steve Scifres (1997), Lee Vaughn (1997), Marcus Harris (1997)
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
1st all-time at Purdue
Was he good?
Only one of the usual three angles is measurable for this era — raised the program.
+21.2 pts at Purdue · #58 of 1290 · top quarter