Barry Odom Talks Purdue's High Transfer Total, Recruiting Philosophy

Barry Odom didn't have much of a choice when he took the job at Purdue, he was going to have to build his first team through the transfer portal. With dozens of roster positions to fill and high school recruiting essentially finished, the Boilermakers had to rely on the portal.

Purdue has welcomed 55 new faces from the transfer portal into the program since Odom's arrival in December. It's a huge number, but it's not something that surprised the new Boilermaker coach.

Odom had been through this before at UNLV and was prepared to build a roster through the portal.

"I knew at some positions it would be a complete overhaul," Odom told reporters Thursday. "I'm not new to the fact of what that is. We had 55 (transfers) my first year at the last place, then we had 50 the next year. You look at the national trend of what that is, I can't compare us to anyone else, I just know what we needed to do to put together a team for 2025."

College football today can be a somewhat finicky business. Ideally, most coaches would love to build their programs through high school recruiting and supplement the roster with transfer players. But with student-athletes having freedom of movement, that won't always be the case.

Odom understands that, but he's hopeful that Purdue can establish a culture and create a program that is founded in recruiting at the high school level. That's a major priority in West Lafayette with the new staff.

"I think it's important that we signed a lot of high school guys in this year's class, too. Next year's high school class, the 2026 class, is going to be a lot higher than this year's high school class. I believe in the foundational approach," Odom said. "You'd like to get to the point where that (transfer) number isn't nearly as high, but then also if you recruit a bunch of guys through the portal who you have for eight months, you're going to have to replace them."

Odom worked with urgency during the winter and spring months, building a roster that possessed quality depth entering the 2025 season. That part was difficult, but now the Boilermakers face a new challenge with summer workouts and fall camp lingering.

Over the next two months, Purdue must find a way to blend the 55 transfer players, the incoming recruits, and the returnees into one team. How quickly can the Boilermakers establish that kind of chemistry?

"How do you build a team together? How do you take those 24 post-spring signees and blend them with the new guys, plus the high school guys, plus the returners? There's no book on that," Odom said. "It's about your actions every single day.

"The leadership, the embracing of the new, blending them, spending time together, and then ultimately understanding that we represent something so much bigger than ourselves in Purdue football."