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Purdue’s Ryan Walters: ‘Don’t Like That N on the Helmet’

Boilermakers’ first-year coach played for Colorado and grew up hating the Huskers

Joe Hudson

Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports
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Purdue coach Ryan Walters played safety for Colorado from 2004 to 2008. His father, Marc, was a CU quarterback under coach Bill McCartney in the 1980s.

So it should come as no surprise that Walters harbors some of the CU hate for Nebraska that was cultivated by McCartney and some of his successors in Boulder.

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At his press conference Monday ahead of the Boilermakers' game Saturday in Lincoln, the first-year Purdue head coach and former Illinois defensive coordinator was asked about playing in the environment at Nebraska. His response:

Yeah, you know, 91,000-plus that are a sea of red. My history with Nebraska started at a very young age. Obviously grew up a fan at Colorado, my dad playing there, and that was the hated rivalry, right? And so you remove yourself from that as a coach, and the first time I got to play against Nebraska again was in 2021. My first season at Illinois. I just remember them running out of the tunnel in Champaign and the feelings just come back, right?

It's like, man, I really can't stand that color. Don't like that N on the helmet. And so definitely this has been a big week. We've explained to the guys how crazy it gets out there. They are die-hard fans, win, lose, or draw, so we're looking forward to a great venue to play a competitive and tough football game.

Walters is looking for his third win in a row against the Huskers as a coach. Illinois won 30-22 in 2021 and 26-9 last season. Walters also has faced Nebraska coach Matt Rhule in the past:

My history with Coach Rhule goes back to his Temple days. When I was at Memphis we were able to play them. You just see his teams, they are tough, physical, they're smart. They don't beat themselves. That's exactly what you see on tape. ...

They're really physical and try to dominate you up front on defense. They get creative with exchange in gaps with their front seven, and do a good job of disguising and mixing up coverages in the back end.

So it's a tough, smart football team. That's pretty much his M.O. and has been since I've got know him as a coach.

Walters said the running threat posed by Husker quarterback Heinrich Haarberg will require some adjustments by Purdue, which is coming off a bye week:

He's big, physical. Nebraska, they make you play with all 11, right? So we'll definitely have to adjust the way we play, adjust our game plan a little bit.

They run a ton of different run schemes, both zone and gap schemes. Their window dressing is for a purpose usually, and you got to be able to account for all 11. Definitely excited that we had a week to prepare as a staff, and excited for the two bonus practices really. I think those will be beneficial for our guys, especially in the run fits.

Walters said he expects "a tough and physical game, and I think we'll be as healthy as we can be at this point of the season going into Saturday, which makes me feel good."

Postscript

Two days after Walters spoke, former Husker safety Ben Eisenhart tweeted a clip from the 2006 Colorado-Nebraska game and needled Walters by saying, "This is why the Purdue Coach hates Nebraska so much. He tried to smoke my boy Mueller and got the worst of it." (Josh Mueller, from Columbus, Nebraska, earned four letters at tight end from 2004 to '07.) The video can be viewed below.

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Joe Hudson
JOE HUDSON

Joe Hudson has operated a Husker-related website since 1995 and joined forces with David Max to form HuskerPedia (later renamed HuskerMax) in 1999. It began as a hobby during his 35 years as a newspaper editor and reporter, a career that included stints at the Lincoln Star, Omaha World-Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer and Denver Post. In Denver, Joe was chief of the copy desk during his final 16 years at the Post. He is proud to have been involved in Pulitzer Prize-winning projects in both Philadelphia and Denver. Joe has been a Nebraska football fan since the mid-1960s during his childhood in Omaha. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in journalism and economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1976. He resides a few freeway exits north of Colorado Springs and enjoys bicycling and walking his dogs in his spare time. You can reach him at joeroyhud@outlook.com.

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