2016 Purdue Football Coaching Search: Mike Sanford Jr

Candidate Tier #4

Category: Dirty with Notre Dame grossness, also Intriguing

Who Is He?

Mike Sanford, Jr. is currently the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame. Notre Dame currently can’t score points so maybe Mike Sanford isn’t the best option.

He was a QB at Boise State from 2000-2004 so he’s seen winning football up close. He went into coaching right away and bounced a bit from UNLV to Stanford to Yale to WKU before going back to Stanford for a few years. He was the recruiting coordinator, QB coach and WR coach there before jumping back to his alma mater to run the offense for one year (2014). Then Notre Dame came calling in 2015 and one has to assume he may be once again looking for work after 2016.

Why would he be successful at Purdue?

The Boise connection means he knows how to win as an upstart and to not fear the “big boys.” That’s worth something. He’s also been part of Boise, Stanford and ND, so he’s seen big time college football as well as very well prepared coaching staffs. Ideally, he would bring some of that knowledge with him.

Why could he flop at Purdue?

He’s not only not a Purdue guy, it’s hard to say what “guy” he really is. He played at Boise, coached all over but spent the majority of his time at Stanford….and most recently has been at ND. So where does he have strong recruiting ties? Hard to say.

Would he come to Purdue?

Most likely, yes. There’s no doubt that he would strongly consider a Power 5 job opening to be the head man, but our research tells us he’s not yet ready.