James Purpura enters his third season as head coach of the program.

During his tenure, Purpura has increased the program wins in every season at the helm. In his second season, Purpura led VMI to new program firsts. The Keydets won their first conference game in eight years, their first Southern Conference win in program history (joined in 2015), and qualified for the conference playoffs for the second time in the programs 39 -year history. Purpura led VMI to its first home win in three years, first win over Mercer in 10 years and first win over Mount Saint Marys in 17 years. Two Keydets were named to the SoCon All-Conference Team (Hartley Jordan and Luke Rusterucci). The Keydets improved in nearly every statistic (goals for, goals against, emo, clearing, face off, save percentage). For his efforts, Purpura was named head coach of the South Team in the 2022 USILA North/South Senior All-Star Game.

In his first season at VMI, Purpura led the Keydets to their first program win in 707 days in his first game, becoming just the second coach in program history to win his coaching debut. The win over Lafayette was also the programs first win over a Patriot league opponent in 20 years.

Purpura also saw multiple improvements statistically including the Keydets being second in the nation in caused turnovers per game. Both the VMI ride efficiency and extra man offense were the highest they had been in over a decade.

Off the field, the Keydets saw remarkable improvement with the programs APR rating. The programs GPA also had its best two semesters with the spring semester being the highest GPA in program history.