I would not take Indiana lightly Saturday. The days of IU being a layup game for Purdue have come and gone, it would appear.
But now that Purdue has beaten Iowa and Illinois to set up its sudden-death postseason-eligibility game, it certainly looks like there's a great chance the Boilermakers will get their sixth win and be a bowl participant for the second season in a row.
Say what you will about how Purdue got there. Yes, winning two games against two teams that will finish this season with nothing to show for it doesn't make amends for losing five straight and getting your doors blown off by anybody who's anybody in the Big Ten prior, Ohio State excluded. The Boilermakers might finish this season beating no FBS team with a winning record.
Now Purdue is in an, uh, interesting position.
Danny Hope is hanging on by a thread as Purdue's head coach, has been for weeks, ever since his team was mired in a five-game losing streak that assured the Boilermakers wouldn't meet any of their more significant goals this season.
We've been through this before: More was expected ? and needed - this season.
But Purdue has not made a move, whereas more and more schools are acting quickly when they know a change is coming. Kentucky fired its coach weeks ago; Tennessee and Western Michigan did so today.
I never would have expected Purdue to do something during the season; if you know Morgan Burke at all, you know how much he's protective of the student-athlete experience at Purdue. Good for him on that front. Firing a coach during a season can be a difficult pill for players to swallow.
It would have been easy for the A.D. to act after Wisconsin or Ohio State or Minnesota or Penn State if he were going to do something in-season.
He didn't.
No reason not to wait, really. You can't hire somebody in-season in most cases, and the way the game is played nowadays, third parties can do much of your legwork for you before you even officially have an opening.
Again, it would have been easy for Purdue to make an announcement after the Penn State game, give Hope the option to coach out the season or not (if you want him to), and move forward with the relief of the Band-Aid being ripped off.
But now things get a bit sticky.
A decision has to come after the IU game, in short order. You can't sit through December without being all in on your search while every other school out there with an opening is. You run the risk of people you want being scooped up by others, leaving you with scraps, unless of course you can secure a guy behind closed doors in advance of hiring season, however underhanded that might seem.
When Hope's contract was extended right before the bowl game, the timing was very interesting, coming before the last game after we were told a decision would not be made until after the season. The news, for all intents and purposes, was buried, issued on a Friday evening two days before Christmas immediately after Purdue's final on-campus media availability had run its course.
So what happened? Did Purdue just change its mind on the whole after-the-season thing?
Or did something else happen?
Look at the coaching landscape at this time a year ago and you'll find two coaches on the market last season who you can easily connect the dots to from a Purdue perspective.
Kevin Sumlin is a Purdue alum and was the hottest coach on the mark; Paul Chryst was the guy it seemed to want in the first place a few years ago.
Sumlin took the Texas A&M job; Chryst took the Pittsburgh job.
Then Hope got his extension.
The point is that hiring a coach is hard enough. You can't afford to be a by-stander during hunting season any longer than you have to be.
So, yeah, Purdue has to do something, and if you're keeping Hope, you need to say it ASAP, for the benefit of recruiting ? after the Indiana game.
Even if it means firing a coach after a three-game winning streak, a Bucket win and a bowl berth.
This post was edited on 11/18 10:51 PM by Brian_GoldandBlack.com
This post was edited on 11/19 8:13 AM by GoldandBlack.com_Staff
But now that Purdue has beaten Iowa and Illinois to set up its sudden-death postseason-eligibility game, it certainly looks like there's a great chance the Boilermakers will get their sixth win and be a bowl participant for the second season in a row.
Say what you will about how Purdue got there. Yes, winning two games against two teams that will finish this season with nothing to show for it doesn't make amends for losing five straight and getting your doors blown off by anybody who's anybody in the Big Ten prior, Ohio State excluded. The Boilermakers might finish this season beating no FBS team with a winning record.
Now Purdue is in an, uh, interesting position.
Danny Hope is hanging on by a thread as Purdue's head coach, has been for weeks, ever since his team was mired in a five-game losing streak that assured the Boilermakers wouldn't meet any of their more significant goals this season.
We've been through this before: More was expected ? and needed - this season.
But Purdue has not made a move, whereas more and more schools are acting quickly when they know a change is coming. Kentucky fired its coach weeks ago; Tennessee and Western Michigan did so today.
I never would have expected Purdue to do something during the season; if you know Morgan Burke at all, you know how much he's protective of the student-athlete experience at Purdue. Good for him on that front. Firing a coach during a season can be a difficult pill for players to swallow.
It would have been easy for the A.D. to act after Wisconsin or Ohio State or Minnesota or Penn State if he were going to do something in-season.
He didn't.
No reason not to wait, really. You can't hire somebody in-season in most cases, and the way the game is played nowadays, third parties can do much of your legwork for you before you even officially have an opening.
Again, it would have been easy for Purdue to make an announcement after the Penn State game, give Hope the option to coach out the season or not (if you want him to), and move forward with the relief of the Band-Aid being ripped off.
But now things get a bit sticky.
A decision has to come after the IU game, in short order. You can't sit through December without being all in on your search while every other school out there with an opening is. You run the risk of people you want being scooped up by others, leaving you with scraps, unless of course you can secure a guy behind closed doors in advance of hiring season, however underhanded that might seem.
When Hope's contract was extended right before the bowl game, the timing was very interesting, coming before the last game after we were told a decision would not be made until after the season. The news, for all intents and purposes, was buried, issued on a Friday evening two days before Christmas immediately after Purdue's final on-campus media availability had run its course.
So what happened? Did Purdue just change its mind on the whole after-the-season thing?
Or did something else happen?
Look at the coaching landscape at this time a year ago and you'll find two coaches on the market last season who you can easily connect the dots to from a Purdue perspective.
Kevin Sumlin is a Purdue alum and was the hottest coach on the mark; Paul Chryst was the guy it seemed to want in the first place a few years ago.
Sumlin took the Texas A&M job; Chryst took the Pittsburgh job.
Then Hope got his extension.
The point is that hiring a coach is hard enough. You can't afford to be a by-stander during hunting season any longer than you have to be.
So, yeah, Purdue has to do something, and if you're keeping Hope, you need to say it ASAP, for the benefit of recruiting ? after the Indiana game.
Even if it means firing a coach after a three-game winning streak, a Bucket win and a bowl berth.
This post was edited on 11/18 10:51 PM by Brian_GoldandBlack.com
This post was edited on 11/19 8:13 AM by GoldandBlack.com_Staff
