Purdue Players Confident Better Days Ahead Under Coach Barry Odom

Mockobee and defensive end CJ Madden both decided to give Odom a chance. They both bought into the vision that the new head coach had for the program.

"I believed in what he demanded and in his philosophy," Madden said. "Obviously, I stayed, and I've been grinding really hard."

Moving on from a 1-11 campaign

If the neuralyzer from the movie Men in Black actually existed, the returning players on Purdue's roster might use it to wipe their memory clean of the one-win season in 2024. Instead, the Boilers are forced to live with those results.

Even though Madden was sidelined with injury for most of the year, playing in just three games, he felt the pain of going through Big Ten play winless.

"The season we had last year was unacceptable. There's no other way to put that," Madden said. "With me being hurt, it hurt even worse, just knowing I couldn't do anything about it."

If there is a positive from the massive turnover Purdue experienced in the offseason, it's that most of its roster didn't experience the major letdown from last year. For a majority of the players on the team, it's none of their concern.

"When you look at the team we have now, a majority of those players didn't feel 1-11, they don't know what that is," Madden said. "For me personally, I feel like that's a chip on my shoulder. We're just trying to be 1-0 every week, that's our goal."

This is a new year in West Lafayette and a new mindset among the players and the staff. Odom has set the tone early, building a foundation and creating a culture within a program. It's helped create buy-in across the team.

For that reason, everyone in Purdue's locker room is expecting a better outcome than the team experienced a year ago.

"I think he does a great job of instilling discipline and structure into the program, so that everyone knows exactly what they should be doing, knowing what's right and what's wrong," Mockobee said. "It's pretty simple, but he's laid a great foundation for us."