2022 Purdue Football Coaching Search – Jason Candle
ED. NOTE (December 2, 2024): This is the 2022 coaching capsule for Jason Candle, a permanent fixture on every BS Coaching Search shortlist. Outside of Lance Leipold leaving Buffalo for Kansas, there haven’t been MAC coaches making the Power 5 (or whatever we’re calling it now) leap - but Candle could be the exception. The risk is that he’s at the MAC’s most resourced school, and plays a bruising style of football. But he’s been at Toledo for 0 seasons, has never had a losing record, and won 11 games in 2023. He’s a clear program-builder, and would be know the Midwest terrain well.
See all the 2024 Purdue Football Head Coaching Candidates here.
Feature image from the Toledo City Paper
Who Is He?
Currently the Head Coach at Toledo. Jason Candle was someone I liked back in 2016 during the Brohm coaching search. He’s still a young guy at just 43, and has proven to be a steady and winning coach at Toledo, where he took over for Matt Campbell for the 2016 season. He won 9 games that year and peaked at 11-3 the following season. With seven seasons of coaching at age 43, he’s yet to have a losing year and is 53-32 overall. He has two MAC championships, including this season.
Why would he be successful at Purdue?
Candle’s teams can play offense. His Rockets were 53rd in YPG this season (for context, Purdue was 50th) yet just 68th in passing offense (Purdue was 17th) but 49th in rushing offense. He does what he needs to do to win and while we love passing at Purdue, we also like winning. Candle has been able to recruit the right guys for his program at Toledo so he understands how to find the right talent to run his system.
Why could he flop at Purdue?
Well, he’s a MAC coach and the last one of those we had wasn’t a hit.
Would he come to Purdue?
I would have to think so. He makes around $1.2M as the highest-paid MAC coach but Purdue could quadruple that in a snap. As noted, he’s been at Toledo for seven years (lot of guys on our list have been somewhere in that range) so maybe he’s ready for the leap? I would have to think that if you have designs on a power conference job, you don’t want to stay in the MAC for too long, lest your name get forgotten.
