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Ryan Walters was given 24 games and two seasons to prove himself as the head football coach at Purdue. Only five victories in that span led to his dismissal.
Now, for the first time since being fired by the Boilermakers after the 2024 season concluded, Walters will return to West Lafayette, Indiana, as the defensive coordinator for the University of Washington in a Friday night game.
Although he coached against Purdue in 2025 and celebrated a 49-13 win in Seattle, coming back to his former workplace evokes a different set of emotions.
"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't different," Walters said. "I could give the whole coach cliche and say it's just another game. But there are different feelings. I don't really know how to describe it because it is different, it's unique. There's good and bad experiences there. You're going to a place that is familiar."
In 2023, Walters took over and won four of twelve games, defeating Virginia Tech 24-17, Illinois 44-19, Minnesota 49-30, and Indiana (before Curt Cignetti's arrival) 35-31. That was seen as progress.
However, the following season, the Boilermakers crushed Indiana State 49-0 in the opener and then lost 11 straight games. Five were blowouts, three were shutouts, and two came in overtime. They lost to both Oregon State and Oregon. The final blow for Walters was a season-ending 66-0 defeat to Indiana (with Cignetti at the helm).
Walters left his role as Illinois' defensive coordinator to take over at Purdue, replacing Jeff Brohm, who departed after six seasons to become Louisville's coach. Walters inherited a Big Ten program that had finished 8-6 after losing to LSU 63-7 in the Citrus Bowl under an interim coach.
With a 5-19 record at Purdue, he was dismissed by athletic director Mike Bobinski, who is no longer at the school either. The AD retired this past summer. Three days after the 2024 season ended, Bobinski announced Walters' firing, stating he no longer had confidence in the program's direction.
Walters then did what any suddenly unemployed football coach from a cold Midwest state would do in December -- he gathered his wife and kids and headed to Florida and Disney World. Not long after, Jedd Fisch and UW persuaded him to come to Montlake, where he has been for two seasons.
Ironically, Purdue now employs Barry Odom as its coach, the brother of UW linebackers coach Brian Odom. Barry Odom is the person who hired Walters to join him at Memphis and Missouri, and the one who gave Walters his first opportunity to become a defensive coordinator.
Walters returns to his former place of employment with a Husky team mired in a three-game losing streak (3-3 overall, 0-3 Big Ten), while the Boilermakers (3-3, 2-1) ride a two-game win streak into Friday's matchup. Walters will no doubt take a moment to look around before getting down to business in trying to beat his old team in his former town.
Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades, and he has covered University of Washington football and basketball for much of that time. In a working capacity, he has attended the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, and countless Final Fours and bowl games.