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That did not take long. Last night we found out that Tim Tibesar would not be retained as Purdue's defensive coordinator. Today it was announced that Linebackers coach at Florida State Greg Hudson would be taking over as the defensive guru under new coach Darrell hazel. FSU's on Scout.com affiliate broke the news:
Sources indicate that Florida State linebackers coach Greg Hudson has accepted the offer to become the new defensive coordinator at Purdue.
I love this news. Florida State had a defense that actually stopped people this season. In the two games I watched extensively (Miami and Northern Illinois) they strangled the life out of two pretty good offenses. Against Miami the Hurricanes jumped out to an early 10-0 lead then nothing worked for the rest of the game.
Hudson was a DC at East Carolina from 2005-09. In that time the Pirates went 5-6, 7-6, 8-5, 9-5, and 9-5 with a pair of Conference-USA championships and a stout defense. The 2008 season was especially good as the Pirates opened with wins against Virginia Tech and West Virginia. Virginia Tech went on to win the ACC and the Orange Bowl that season.
Hudson has been linebackers coach at Cincinnati (1997-2000), Minnesota (2001-2004), and Florida State 2010-12) while playing at Notre Dame for two seasons. Therefore, we've seen him before with the Golden Gophers (who were at their best under Glen Mason at that time) and the Fighting Irish.
This season was a very good one for FSU, as the Seminoles were 12-2, won the ACC, and won the Orange Bowl with a defense-first philosophy. The Noles were 6th scoring nationally at 14.7 points per game given up and held teams to 10 or fewer points six times in 14 games.
Christian Jones is one of the top-rated linebackers in the country and could go pro early as a player that Hudson coached. Telvin Smith is also pretty damn good in his own right. Hudson can help us fix a vast, gaping hole at linebacker that last saw Niko Koutouvides and Landon Johnson as dominant players a decade ago. Since they left Purdue had has a revolving door of decent, but not great linebackers and the overall defensive unit has struggled as a result.