Purdue officially announced the hiring of new outside linebackers coach Joe Dineen on Wednesday afternoon.

Dineen becomes one of the first key hires of the Ryan Walters in West Lafayette.

 

He was a star linebacker at Kansas from 2014-18. He earned consensus All-America honors in 2018 and was a 3-time captain with the Jayhawks. Dineen made 382 tackles, 42 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks across his 5 seasons with the Jayhawks.

Dineen is a young coach. He was a graduate assistant on Walters’ defensive staff at Illinois in 2022, making this the first on-field role of his coaching career. He also previously served as a graduate assistant at SMU.

“Coach Dineen is a bright, young coach,” Walters said of his hiring. “Reminds me a lot of myself at that age.”

Dineen is originally from Lawrence, Kansas.