A third of Purdue football's roster is new. How fishing, escape rooms, bowling helped it jell.

INDIANAPOLIS — How did a Purdue football roster featuring 37 new faces since last season transform into one which considers its camaraderie a primary strength?

It headed to Big Fish ‘n Campground to bond over who could reel in the biggest bluegill — and which teammates were too squeamish to bait a hook. They collaborated on decoding their way out of escape rooms at Mission: Breakout and Locked Up. Athletes accustomed to knocking over 300-pound linemen tried to knock over 10 pins at Arrowhead Bowl.

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These field trips all over Tippecanoe County were about more than recreation. Between 18 incoming transfers and the freshman class, about a third of the Boilermakers roster turned over since the end of last season.

Before this new group could win together, it needed to come together.

“A huge amount of those guys, you've already went through a spring cycle, you've been through a summer cycle,” offensive lineman Gus Hartwig said. “You're not learning as many guys, so you kind of had that trust already built in. A lot of it is just spending time around people, building trust.”

Ryan Walters and other first-year coaches are trying to establish and solidify programs in an era of constant turnover and change. The job has arguably never been more difficult. Group of Five programs develop stars who jump to the power conferences. Mid-tier power conference programs such as Purdue develop stars who jump to upper-tier programs.

Walters, though, shrugged off that added degree of difficulty. It's all he knows. His only option is to make it work. First came rebuilding a roster, then came the team-building exercises to provide cohesion.

Walters intentionally hit the transfer portal hard in the winter as opposed to waiting until the spring — an option less available to him immediately after his hire in December 2022.

“So now you get a full offseason of getting to know what we expect from them on a day-to-day standpoint,” Walters said. “They get to be inundated with academics and they get to know West Lafayette.

“But they also get to know each other. We provided a lot of different opportunities and platforms to develop organic relationships. Because of the timing of them enrolling, their chemistry and camaraderie are at an all-time high — definitely a lot stronger than it was last season.”

Linebacker Kydran Jenkins credited Pike grad Mahamane Moussa with the most impressive fishing performance — reeling in his first catch in only a few minutes. It also became quickly evident which Boilermakers had put a line in the water before.

“Some guys were like scared to death to touch the worm,” said Hartwig, a Zionsville grad.

Jenkins’ group successfully liberated itself from the escape room, barely beating the clock. Some of the most important time together, though, had no competitive element. Casual hangouts have more recently featured the new EA Sports College Football 25 , with players controlling their virtual likeness and griping about their skill ratings.

“It’s kind of like an icebreaker to be comfortable, and then the more stuff you go about doing, you're getting closer and closer with guys,’ Hartwig said. “You’re getting a little bit deeper understanding who they are, where they came from, their background, what you have in common with them.

"Then from there, when you get on a football field, you kind of have the repertoire to where you can, maybe not get on a guy super hard, but you have that mutual respect of like, I know where you’re from, I can talk to you a certain way to make sure that we get the point across.”

Transferring that camaraderie and familiarity onto the field will need to be more than a theory. Inevitably, a potential tear in the fabric will emerge.

Two games in, Notre Dame comes to Ross-Ade Stadium. A few days later, the Boilermakers will be on a plane to Oregon State. A week later, old West division nemesis Nebraska comes to town for a game critical to both teams’ chances of improving their record in 2024.

The returning players know all too well how injuries can alter the course of a season.

The payoff of those baited hooks and gutter balls will truly come when adversity inevitably hits.

“We’re with each other all the time, and you can just see the team jell,” said quarterback Hudson Card, who called this one of the tightest locker rooms he’s experienced. “It’s pretty special, really, to be a part of.”

Follow IndyStar Purdue Insider Nathan Baird on X at @nwbaird .

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: A third of Purdue football's roster is new. How fishing, escape rooms, bowling helped it jell.