{"id":11883,"date":"2023-07-28T03:19:16","date_gmt":"2023-07-28T08:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/?p=11883"},"modified":"2023-07-28T03:19:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-28T08:19:16","slug":"ryan-walters-calls-graham-harrell-a-no-brainer-hire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/ryan-walters-calls-graham-harrell-a-no-brainer-hire\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Walters calls Graham Harrell a no-brainer hire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Purdue<\/a> needed Graham Harrell<\/a><\/strong>. Purdue got Graham Harrell. On Thursday, head coach Ryan Walters<\/a><\/strong> discussed the decision to hire the former West Virginia<\/a> offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

\u201cGraham was a no-brainer. He\u2019s been a home run thus far. Obviously, we haven\u2019t played a down of competitive football, but I\u2019ve been really impressed with his approach to teaching and to motivating, and holding everybody accountable on the offensive side,\u201d Walters said at Big Ten Media Days<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Harrell\u2019s Mountaineers\u2019 offense was undoubtedly accountable. In his lone season as the OC, West Virginia averaged 30.6 points per game, fueled by a balanced attack of 227.5 passing yards and 171.5 rushing yards per game.<\/p>\n

Before joining the Mountaineers, Harrell spent three seasons at USC<\/a>. In 2021, Harrell guided the Trojans to 443.9 yards per outing, the 24th-most in the nation. Nonetheless, Harrell\u2019s offensive genius developed far before he held a clipboard.<\/p>\n

Harrell was a record-setting quarterback under legendary head coach Mike Leach at Texas Tech<\/a> from 2005-08. The Texas native finished his career with an NCAA-record 134 touchdown passes and 15,793 career passing yards, good for the second-most in NCAA history.<\/p>\n

Of course, Walters can\u2019t help but still talk some trash to Harrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a great rapport. I played against him when I was in college. He won\u2019t like to hear this, but I did intercept him twice in one game. Won both of those competitions, by the way,\u201d Walters said.<\/p>\n

With Harrell\u2019s offensive mind and Walters\u2019 defensive mastery, the pair could win more games as coaches than they ever won as players. Walters has been impressed by Harrell so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cGraham has been awesome. I knew being a defensive coach and having my background the way it is and the history that Purdue has had offensively, I knew it was important for me to hire an offensive coordinator that would be able to attract quarterbacks and offensive skill guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re competitive at Purdue. But we\u2019ve developed a great chemistry and rapport. We work out together all the time, every day. And he and [Kevin] Kane have that good back-and-forth going through spring ball,\u201d Walters said.<\/p>\n

Competitiveness only gets a team so far. Talent takes them the rest of the way. Purdue had that talent last season, winning its first Big Ten West division title. Only time will tell if the Boilermakers can replicate that success once again.<\/p>\n

The Boilermakers will kick off their 2023 campaign on Sept. 2 as the team takes on\u00a0Fresno State<\/a> in their season opener.<\/p>\n

The post Ryan Walters calls Graham Harrell a no-brainer hire<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Purdue needed Graham Harrell. Purdue got Graham Harrell. On Thursday, head coach Ryan Walters discussed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}