My solution is for fans to have lower expectations for now and the future. Minnesota was a bad team to begin with and played without 22 of their players meaning they had almost zero bench. and they still won. We lost to Rutgers?
my biggest issue is the knowledge that unlike Hope and Hazell, Purdue will not fire Brohm. The only way he leaves Purdue is if he gets a better offer such as the Michigan job. Hope's contract was very easy to eat. many people said he was informed after the minnesota game that he wasn't coming back. it was very hard financially for Purdue to buy out Hazell's contract. it will be impossible for Purdue to buy out Brohm's contract. We are not Alabama or Auburn where people just come forward and say here's $10 million, find a new coach. So offering names of other coaches I'd rather have is a fruitless discussion.
there were a lot of expectations after Brohm's first season and what he was able to accomplish with Hazell's recruits. it was thought because of their bad record, that his players were not very good. Looking back, he had some very good players who just always found a way to lose. and his receivers couldn't catch. If his receivers had been able to catch, hazell probably could have produced some .500 teams. hazell's recruits have proven they could compete .
and then came the purge. in order to sign bigger recruiting classes, brohm encouraged mediocre players to leave. and out the window went your experience factor. at the beginning of last year, it looked like the class would be 15-18 players. But then Brohm kept adding recruits and encouraging players to leave. So now we have a lot of young, inexperienced players.
as for recruiting, many people still credit Hazell for what was brohm's first recruiting class. many people claim wasn't given enough time to recruit his class, and that he only had 6 weeks to put it together. The facts are he brought a bunch of recruits over from WKU. and if you look at WKU's recruiting offer records, brohm was recruiting the same players hazell was . So it's not like he started from scratch. he was already on the recruiting trail before he arrived at Purdue. he was just recruiting for WKU. and even though he was at WKU, was recruiting players that also had offers from other power 5 teams. and as part of his recruiting that year, he brought in several jucos and grad transfers and flipped several other players. he kept the hazell commitments and added to them. if you take a hard look at that class, there were less than 5 players who committed to Purdue prior to hazell's departure. the rest all came to purdue because of brohm. Barnes was a brohm recruit as were many others from that class.
one of my comments when hazell was coaching was why is he recruiting a player that no other BIG 10 team is recruiting or even interested in? Shouldn't purdue be recruiting players other BIG 10 teams are recruiting? rather thanlooking at stars, i was looking at their other offers and questioning the thought process of our recruiting. i also questioned the timing. in today's recruiting game, why confirm a commitment from a 2 star in july, when you can flip him inn December? I'm confident any 2 star that verbals to northern illinois could be flipped at a later date, so why get their commitment early? to me it's a better strategy to offer lower ranked players late in the process if there are openings. and some of those lower ranked players may even become walk ons rather than having to offer them a scholarship. if a player's best offer is eastern Dakota St< do we really need to make them an offer ? and if i'm that player and all i got is one low ball offer, I'm definitely going to accept one from purdue. to me, that presents the dilemma of filling up your class too early with too may mediocre players and doesn't leave room to sign a quality one late in the recruiting process. i bring this up because last year as we approached the signing deadline there were several quality players still looking for a team and we had no scholarships left to offer. We also had to be creative with two linebackers that we accepted offers from but had no scholarships to offer, so we used future scholarships.
why do I bring this up? because we accepted a commitment from a player whose other best offer was northern Illinois while allowing the better TE go to UK. We accepted a commitment from a RB whose best offer was South Dakota St while another 4star RB from Florida is still looking at us. We beat out bethune Cookman for a commitment. we beat out ball st and army/Air force for another recruit. if i was recruiting, I'd pursue the best players first and tell the others we'll get back to you later if we have room.
once again, i ask the question why is brohm recruiting players no other BIG 10 team is even interested in? Non of these players received an offer from any other BIG10 school. so why did purdue even bother recruiting them and accept their verbal commitment? this year it seems not only our recruiting class ranking will be lower, butt as recruiters, Purdue is setting their sights a lot lower than in previous years. as somebody said, you can't win in the BIG 10 with MAC talent. Well some of these players are not even receiving offers from MAC teams. In sharp contrast, painter recruits the same players other BIG 10 and top 20 teams recruit. Shouldn't brohm be doing likewise?
I'm sorry if i seem so negative. But to me great teams are forged in the off season. and they start with recruiting. I don't like what I'm seeing of the future.