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If De'Nylon had been a…

If De'Nylon had been a basketball player (like Ashley Morrissette, unrelated but former Purdue WBB player, class of 2017), it would have been perfect.

Somewhere in the third…

Somewhere in the third quarter, I was starting to get a little grumpy about the predictability and insistence on using an abridged playbook again. In my defense, I didn't realize the game was already over. I didn't know that the defense would end up turning Washington's OL into Indiana's OL, making one of the best QBs in the country repeatedly chuck the ball wildly just to get it out of his hands before he got hit yet again, only to get hit yet again. I didn't know that for once, the good guys would get most of the breaks, and the opponents would be the ones dropping open passes etc.

But then even I could tell it was over, and it was a lot of fun. I think the first UM game I watched was probably '71, the only home game I ever attended was '72 against Minnesota (my five-year-old brain was convinced we had left too soon and we missed another TD; my kindergarten friends' parents who had the extra ticket (for a 5-year-old!! oh the old days) had not, in fact, left too soon). There have been more than a few pretty good games since, a few important ones, but a lot of games that didn't play out like this, and of the good ones I recall, none felt like this one. 

I'm glad we all got to see this. I'm glad we got a game where not even the one stray ridiculous "targeting" call could mess things up for more than a few seconds, barely long enough for the rules "expert" to quickly say, in his own words, "lol that's not targeting." It was a lot of fun.

And nobody gets to vote on who won.

I am thrilled that after a…

I am thrilled that after a glorious weekend of college sports, on the rare occasion that I spot an OSU fan in the wild (there are locals who support that school; there has been a blissful absence of That F'ing Guy fans since Michigan resumed control of the East, I do not miss those weekends when the Buckeyes came to town, regardless of normal rooting interest most folks I know here in Indy share my dislike for OSU) the plaintive cries of Cheater Cheater will be no more than they ever were, an unwillingness to acknowledge what's right in front of them. Michigan can't have been the better team (or better-coached team) so it must be Something Else.

I liked the last couple of seasons better, but the thing about a blowout is you don't get the thrill of a game-sealing interception. (You do get the conspiracy folks looking at elbows, so that's something.)

Here's hoping this week's game goes the way it should - take care of business against the Iowa defense and then see how the playoff shakes out. (No split allegiance this time of year; the Boilers are safely home, Bucket stored in its proper place, so I can focus my attention on Michigan.)

In general, I tend to feel…

In general, I tend to feel like a new head coach means Year 0 for non-elite programs, given where they tend to be, how little top talent they tend to have, and how little top talent will transfer in. I've definitely applied that to Purdue this year given that a) their defense has been mediocre at best for a long time (I don't remember the last time they had a legitimately good team defense, despite the number of NFL draftees they've had) and it's been bad quite often, b) last year was the beginning of the Smoke and Mirrors Division, and c) Purdue historically hasn't recruited well so subtracting the folks who were there because of Brohm and thus were departing because he did left ... not a lot.

On this side of the ball, it's more noticeable - when you're pinning your hopes on a transfer CB and he gets hurt before the season started, things aren't going to go well. It makes sense to me that Walters would go blitz-heavy since I suspect that if he tried dropping 8-9 into coverage it wouldn't help a lot. It's great to have a couple of impact players up front, but that's not going to matter much Saturday - should be another game where JJ hurts his counting stats by being too good too quick and earning another extended rest as we see how Michigan's second- and third-string offenses carve up another subpar defense. (It totally makes sense to pull him! And counting stats shouldn't matter ... you don't have to look any farther than Purdue's coaching staff to find a guy whose counting stats were far better than his performance. Also the sense I get is that Harrell's reputation as an OC seems to be tracking with his QB ability, so if the Boilers have a new OC in a year or two, I wouldn't be surprised.)

I have a long story about a…

I have a long story about a time after college from when I briefly worked in a cafeteria for a manufacturing plant and a temp reported to work drunk (it was the early '90s if that matters, maybe it doesn't; this was the first shift that temp had worked with us and would be the last).

The short version is that the boss didn't have any good options and tried to find something the temp could do safely in a kitchen, which obviously is very difficult. Unfortunately the task involved a mandoline slicer and resulted in an abrupt end to the temp's shift. I'll skip the details but the temp's metaphorical approach was to decide to use man coverage with no help on Harrison because why would you need a safety? who knows how that works anyway.

P.S. My takeaway from the Purdue-VT game is that VT is very bad this year. 

It's pretty easy to see that…

It's pretty easy to see that if you look at a schedule of events in just about any college sport - sure, there are a bunch of non-revenue sports on B1G+, but at least you can pay for that package and then you get all of them. And sports that are on the big networks, you can watch ACC, SEC, Bhowevermany, B12ish ... and then the Pac usually has like one game and "hope you get those regional networks" for the rest. Maybe some games are livestreamed, maybe not. Sometimes they don't even get a game on P12N if another sport is playing at the same time, then all of those games/matches that day are regionally televised.

I think it would have been much better to have "acquired" the whole conference, then split into two parts and basically kept most things the same only spread the TV deal to both conferences (and maybe do some non-con scheduling), but here we are.

Alex, thanks for doing these…

Alex, thanks for doing these, these are really good. 

With respect to non-revenue fan experience, I can't speak to Cliff Keen Arena specifically since I've never been there, but I would recommend Big Sixteen volleyball in general. I've had season tickets to Purdue volleyball for 11 years now and enjoyed every season - Holloway is a different environment but is similar in size and probably in how it works, with a combination of reserved and GA seating. No seat is very far from the action, and in fact you may want to try to sit up a few rows, since a) sitting at floor level can be a poor choice if you are shorter than a standing volleyball player and b) you will want to be paying very close attention during warmups anyway, but balls can be hit pretty hard out of play during live action also, and being up a little farther is going to work in your favor. 

In any event, even without the LA teams, the conference is deep enough that you'll get at least a decent opponent every time out, and if you don't then you should get to see just about every UM player who's not redshirting (VB uses the old-school rule where you can't play in a regular-season match and be redshirted that season). Adding USC and UCLA will just make the conference stronger, although it does mean you will see even less of the conference every year since we can't really expand our conference schedule or the overall schedule. Finally, the price is great for the value you get (again I'm assuming here; it's likely that if you're a student you may get in free or at least cheaper, but even general public tickets are priced nicely). If you start going during a rebuilding year - there may be several of those since this is the kind of conference where you can be #25 in the country and #8 in the conference - then when things start improving you might end up with really nice seats for the good times.

If I can make a small…

If I can make a small correction: Purdue does not force a lot of turnovers, because there's no point reaching for the ball when they know you're just going to have to shoot it over Edey anyway. 

This is consistent with Painter's last several teams, sometimes to a fault: they don't force turnovers and they don't foul a lot (or get called for a lot of fouls). There have been exceptions, but they haven't had a top-100 team in forced TO% since 2011, and while the not-fouling comes and goes, this is one of those two-year stretches where there won't be a lot of fouls. Great for not giving up free points at the line, not so good if you're trailing late and there's no "first in the last two minutes" rule.

I suspect that the Boilers aren't this good as much as they hit a good non-con stretch at the perfect time (usually this is due to having more returning players than the average bear but obviously that wasn't the case this season) and are enjoying yet another year of being good when the Big Tenteen is not so good (this is a pattern IIRC). It's odd to think about almost everyone returning next season; this was supposed to be more of a rebuild and ... isn't. 

I dislike this game as much as I always do when my two teams play. I hope Jett gets healthy and stays around for another season, it would be nice to see Michigan not have to fill two-thirds of their roster every year; it's convenient for Purdue that he's (probably) not healthy right now, but tbh if Purdue is going to lose another conference game (one would assume so) I would rather have it be this one than, say, MSU. Or Ohio State. Or Indiana. Or Wisconsin. Or to Shouty Guy I or II. look I can't help it if several other conference schools are unlikable.

Chicago has also won a Big…

Chicago has also won a Big Ten title since then. I suspect Chicago took football more seriously than Purdue did in those days ... as many have.

Painter usually has the kind of team that does better than expected in December - not as many new folks to get up to speed on the system. But this is better than we expected (but not enough to balance out where Michigan is vs where I'd like to see them).

That kind of finish would be their first men's championship, yes. (43 years since the last Final Four appearance, too.) The women are still the only Big Ten program to win an NCAA title as a member of the conference, and have as many championship appearances as the rest of the conference combined ... which sounds better than it actually is (2 isn't much). tbh while individual teams have really improved recently (Michigan obvs, Indiana as two examples), the conference as a whole just hasn't had elite teams since, well, turn-of-the-millennium Purdue, and given who all is out there (UConn, Stanford, South Carolina etc), it's just not worked out for them. 

If O'Connell is available (I…

If O'Connell is available (I would definitely understand if he isn't), I could see Michigan's opening drive going flat from just a couple of silly mistakes - an overthrown pass, a drop, a missed cut. Purdue goes three and out on a run up the middle, a screen to Charlie Jones that's completely obvious to everyone, and a third-down pass to Jones well short of the sticks. Michigan scores on the ensuing drive and the rout is on. Michigan, 47-13.

If O'Connell is not available ... oof. The one break for Purdue might be that the game breaks open so quickly Michigan can go back into its shell; the downside for them is the run-all-the-time offense isn't guaranteed to just burn clock against a team that struggles to tackle. Michigan, 44-0.

That 93-year streak for Purdue is going to continue, I'm afraid. (Yes, their last outright conference championship was in 1929.) At least they'll get to a decent bowl this season! (looks at bowl projections) (remembers something in Nashville) oh boy.

I dislike when my two teams play but generally hope the team that needs it more wins. I would really like to see Michigan flying into the playoff unbeaten rather than figuring out how the heck That happened.

Purdue's defense somehow…

Purdue's defense somehow managed to make some plays in key games this season, coming as a great surprise to folks who have watched them ... not do that on many occasions this year, most importantly against Iowa and their "offense", but also at the ends of games (Penn State and Syracuse) where all it would have taken was a couple of stops in the last minute. Prevent defense + lack of tackling = very big problems.

I don't think they'll have that specific problem against Michigan, but the tackling issues and the gaps in the secondary are very big problems. A best-case scenario for Purdue is Michigan making enough first-half mistakes to not have a big lead. I would expect something less than that. Purdue got to this point partly on benefiting from teams getting big chances against the secondary and missing them; Michigan isn't going to miss enough of them to matter.

Alex, this is really good -…

Alex, this is really good - it squares with my amateur's view of Purdue's offense. A couple of notes I'd add:

  • The loss of Broc Thompson to injury (word is that he'll be back next season) helped to create that big gap between Jones and everyone else; Thompson looked promising in what we saw of him and Sheffield just hasn't shown that yet. (I don't remember the source, but I believe I recall reading that Brohm had to be talked into the idea that Purdue needed CJ, who's a childhood friend of O'Connell. I'm assuming that lost something in translation because Purdue's WR corps absolutely needed help.)
  • For a good part of the season, Brohm seemed unaware of his OL's run-blocking deficiency, to the point that he was regularly burning downs by running someone into the line for a yard at best on first down. He seems to have broken that tendency lately, which is good, because with or without Mazi, UM's DL will not be allowing yards up the middle. 

There hasn't been nearly enough wild stuff in the game plan this year, which is odd considering that with a weak schedule, Purdue could have had an easier time winning the division if they'd not spent so much time trying to go directly at opponents, especially on the ground. (Or if they'd actually played defense against Iowa.) I would expect there to be some very wild stuff this week. I don't think it'll be enough to make a difference, but there may be a few plays where Michigan fans are doing a good bit of grumbling, much like Purdue fans groused a bit this season during games the Boilers led wire-to-wire. 

Also, although it should be obvious, Purdue needs all of its playmakers completely healthy even to have a chance. If any of them go down, there's no one even close who can step into that role. One Purdue injury could give Michigan a chance to go into the run-all-the-time shell again and start saving tricks for the playoff.

might just be. I haven't…

might just be. I haven't gone anywhere, I just don't comment a lot here. Hit me up on gmail if you want to chat!

This has been a great…

This has been a great weekend of college football, with many fun things happening and many sad people being sad, so sorry for them. I didn't watch the first half of UM-Ohio because I was afraid it would not be like last year; I eventually followed the gamecast for most of the third quarter and then finally started watching, so that ended up working out very well for my viewing health. (I can't say the same for the BTN game that followed.) 

I really hope that Day doesn't allow any of these naysayers to change who he is. If he feels like he has to punt on every fourth down, who are we to question it? I hope he keeps that approach next season - it'll be Ohio's first visit to Ross-Ade since they had a small oops on national TV there in 2018, lol. (Also Purdue will be visiting Ann Arbor and I will take no joy in that game, I would prefer my teams never play, and something tells me 2024 is going to change that for some time.)

Weird things can happen in December, but I don't think this is a Purdue team that can do weird things. Brohm spent half the game in Bloomington trying to figure out why his offense looked like garbage against a team with a terrible defense; he won't get the same chance to make changes in Indianapolis. Purdue doesn't have an explosive guy like Rondale this year, and Michigan, unlike some opponents, will know where Charlie Jones is on the field and will likely even have a guy in the vicinity.

Enjoy your stay here in Indy! The weather will probably suck (not that you need to spend much time outside) but no more than wherever it is you're making the trip from. Purdue fans will just be happy to be here and very happy we're not facing that other team with its notorious fan base. Hopefully everyone stays healthy, the Boilers can play someone hopefully not from the SEC in its own stadium, and Michigan can stay on track to improve on last season - there's just a bit more work for the Wolverines to do.

I appreciate that you got…

I appreciate that you got all the way through the Iowa part without once mentioning the obvious conclusion - Purdue's defense really is that bad. (I mean, the opposing team says "we have a shaky QB who likes throwing the ball to one guy and this is him RIGHT HERE you'll never see it coming"; if your defense does not, in fact, see it coming, you might have problems.)

And yet if they'd managed to figure out who Sam LaPorta is, or if they had hung on to win against Penn State, Purdue would still be in control of their own destiny in the West, which is an equally weird thing to consider, especially given the defensive issues. It does mean that Illinois or Iowa or Wisconsin will be the annual annihilation victim this year, but since Purdue's history of conference success is somewhat limited (we're just a few years away from the centennial anniversary of their last outright title), most of the Purdue folks in Indy would actually be just happy to be there.

anyway! Excellent GL homage, love reading these columns every week, and look forward to the Michigan part of me squirming uncomfortably for a couple of hours on Saturday; the Purdue part of me is already resigned to Illinois guys wide open down the middle and Ron English still somehow being employed next week.

FWIW it's not just a rebrand…

FWIW it's not just a rebrand, it's IU and Purdue basically splitting those regional campuses so that there's basically a main regional and a small regional, with the athletics program staying with the main one (Purdue in this case, unsure as to who will get IUPUI but I believe that will be Indiana's campus). 

It's weird and I don't entirely understand it but it's definitely better than IUPUFW or even IPFW.

Minor correction, to the…

Minor correction, to the writeup at least - O'Connell was a game-time decision and ended up not even playing, so technically Purdue lost their starting QB prior to the game ... also had a "starting" RB out (the RB depth chart isn't really clear to me this year) and a WR as well. 

None of that explains what happened, though. That was a miserable performance. A season that looked like it had some promise (a schedule with no Michigan! and no Ohio State!) is starting to look like just another year. Thank goodness Scott Frost did an unforgettable job at Nebraska so the Boilers won't drop too far in the division.

The ScottyFrostias poem is…

The ScottyFrostias poem is fantastic! Well done, sir.

I looked at it after lunch…

I looked at it after lunch and it made me hungry again, I don't think stomachs are ever safe from these posts, they might as well spell EAT FOOD NOW if you read the first letter of every line.

I need to have a talk with my planning manager (me) about getting a proper grill setup for next season, these recipes are going to be calling for me in my sleep.

I, for one, welcome our new…

I, for one, welcome our new MGoBBQ sponsor overlords.

(Full disclosure: Derrick was kind enough to gift me something in my role as Boiled Sports contributor and it is fantastic, I highly recommend checking out his work, especially if it helps us get more tasty BBQ recipes here.)

How do individual foul…

How do individual foul counts make the game better?

(looks at Brad Davison)

Thanks for writing this! I…

Thanks for writing this! I was watching the replay prior to one of the NCAA volleyball tournament sessions, and even knowing how it was going to play out, I got chills. An amazing accomplishment for the women and for the program, and well deserved.

Well said. I didn't have a…

Well said. I didn't have a horse in last night's game (other than from a bracket perspective; since I went out on a tree and picked UConn to win it all, the choice was easy), but I did end up rooting for UConn because I don't know how to root for players to succeed but for a coach and a school to fail.

It's great to see the Big Tenteen put its weight behind women's sports for a change. The conference looks as strong as it's been in some time, and with the COVID bonus year the timing is perfect, since unfortunately we don't see much WNBA talent from the conference. Both Michigan and Indiana outplayed expectations, Michigan in particular - if you made a list of teams that could lose their starting PG and still be a basket away from an Elite 8 spot, it'd be a pretty short list, and definitely be company you'd want to keep.

Looking forward to another solid season from the Wolverines next year, since, uh, things a bit closer to home are kind of tough to watch right now.

never too early to be making…

never too early to be making a claim for the conference Davison of the Year award

I re-started watching Purdue…

I re-started watching Purdue WBB for some of the same reasons (I followed them a bit when I was in school and then closely through the early '00s for obvs reasons) - cheap tickets (even the luxury seats are a bargain), good band, good talent, and like pretty much every other sport I've watched, if you're going to pick up a new college sport, you could do a lot worse than the Big Ten. Even in years when the conference doesn't pull its weight nationally, a lot of conference opponents are challenging and you rarely see a complete blowout, and when the conference is solid, you get more than your money's worth every game.

Unfortunately it's not easy to follow players once they leave, since the W is so small and it's not easy to find coverage of European hoops, but hopefully that will change over time. And for as poorly as the conference manages BTN+, it does at least cover enough games that you can fill in a lot of the games you can't get to (like this season), so it's much easier to follow a team now than it was 5 or 10 or 20 years ago.

Glad to see this writeup and hope that UM continues to do well. Even without COVID, Purdue was likely headed for another so-so season, so it's nice to see another school that I root for doing well.

re: non-revenue sports, same…

re: non-revenue sports, same. If the conference is just going through the motions when they air other sports, then at least put them on Twitch or some other place not behind a paywall - volleyball, for one, is the deepest and arguably strongest conference in the country, put it someplace where it can draw the fans it deserves, or at least pay for a real broadcast. Not sure why the biggest contract in the country has only enough money in what seems like half of those matches to pay for an 18-year-old moving a camera back and forth between the court and the scoreboard. (Can't imagine that's much of a marketable skill for the poor intern either.)

Possibly, if you're looking…

Possibly, if you're looking at his Golden State years, 2017-18 in particular. Plenty of offensive firepower among his teammates, so he could just D up and exist on offense. Turn down the offense a bit more (.567/.282/.632 is probably optimistic).

Late-career Lindsey Hunter is probably a better comp. When he came back to Detroit, his outside shot was awful, but since he was strictly perimeter that kept him off the foul line, and his defense just about evened out his offense. Of course Hunter was on his way down, and in theory Eastern can improve, even if only by working more on shot selection (assuming his stroke is what it is).

IME he was a solid…

IME he was a solid complement to Carsen, since the one way you can hide a no-shot guard on offense is if you can give his entire usage to another guy who'll still be efficient with it. (I could see a team like Houston giving him an NBA shot, since I think you or I could start alongside Harden and not have much impact on their offense, and I'm a foot shorter than Eastern with a shot like his and nowhere near the defense.)

But once Carsen left - and two other solid three-point shooters - Purdue needed/needs the opposite of that, someone to pick up a good bit of the scoring slack. Eastern's not in a position to do that, definitely not on a team with an old-style post presence. Part of the problem the Boilers had last year was that they ran some of the same sets as the year before, only this time there wasn't a Carsen around to jack up a shot inside 5 seconds and hit it.

I think Howard will find a way to get quality minutes from Eastern, especially in the 2022 season. It'll help to have a solid defender who has Big Tenteen experience to help the younger players adjust, and if he's able to contribute something on offense, even better.

For some reason, I'd never…

For some reason, I'd never thought about the "zone" aspect of zone blitzing - too much listening to bad announcers, I guess. Having the history and the explanations for it really helps to understand it ... as always, great work.

btw, the John Shoop era at…

btw, the John Shoop era at Purdue ended in 2015 - not sure if he decided to stay clear of the business after that, if the wreck of the offense he presided over was the problem, or if it was a mix of the two.

If PJ thinks realignment is…

If PJ thinks realignment is inevitable, send him over. Little Brown Jug is annual again, Minnesota-Wisconsin can be a protected game. I assume in that scenario Indiana would go West since there's no reason to move anyone else and certainly the new commish can't be as bad as the old one, right?

I'd prefer not to face UM/OSU/PSU annually, but if Brohm does stay then those games would definitely be high-profile conference games. I suppose there's a scenario where Frost makes Nebraska a 10-win candidate again and Fleck actually solves the road problem he seems to have, which might make the West (just as?) competitive at the top, but that seems less likely in a collective sense. More likely would be the current situation or maybe 1-2 teams rising above the rest.

There's also the prospect of annual Rutger/Maryland games, but I just figured nobody else wants those either. Thanks, Delany!

but it would have to take at…

but it would have to take at least one upset, since Michigan, MSU and Purdue will all end up in different brackets (because they'll be protected seeds and among the top 4 from the conference).

And maybe that wouldn't even do it, pending the Big Tenteen tournament games. If Purdue or MSU plays OSU for a third time in Chicago, then they can't meet in the NCAAs until the regional final ... so they can't be the 3 and 10 in the same region. Conference teams meeting in the Sweet 16 would have to have met no more than twice prior to the NCAAs. Same thing with Purdue and Minnesota. (In your example it would have been fine if WVU and Marquette had only played twice - if you only played once then you can actually meet in the second round.)

But just to make sure we should probably have MSU finish third in the conference, for reasons. Let the rest play out from there.

I have season tickets to…

I have season tickets to both Indy Eleven (USL) and Purdue football, and while the USL is probably the equivalent of fourth- or fifth-tier English soccer it's still televised, and even as a second-tier team, we get replays on a big screen since they play in Lucas Oil ... but the matches go at the same speed as top-tier soccer, we're wrapped up right around two hours even if they give 8 minutes of added time in the second half.

Contrast that with the two night games in Ross-Ade so far this season; the Missouri game somehow finished in less than four hours (but not by much), and the Northwestern game topped that mark. The endless commercial breaks are bad enough (although in club seating it does give you more time to get refreshments, I'd prefer to have to miss game time for that), but the replay system seems to have gotten worse, and I'm not sure it's as effective as it used to be, especially since officials seem to be missing calls that aren't reviewable - if we need any more evidence that officials should be paid full-time and working on their craft full-time, I can't think what that might be.

Ross-Ade also has been…

Ross-Ade also has been showing the time remaining in media timeouts, which was both a) excellent for the reason you mentioned and b) frustrating as all hell in the four-hour marathon that was the Thursday night opener against Northwestern, since the vast majority of the extra time could be directly attributed to commercials. (If it were a 51-47 game, that would be different.)

So I assume this was something approved by Big Ten/NCAA, or perhaps even requested by the conference so that the on-field TV personnel know when to signal the officiating crew to get the show moving again.

exactly

The last non-interim Purdue president before Daniels is an astrophysicist who's now director of the NSF. The acting president after her was a professor at Cal-Berkeley and Purdue before moving up to Provost.

The one good thing Daniels has done is (mostly) leaving the athletic department to them what knows it. It wasn't great when Burke was there, since Burke was aware of Purdue's deficiencies but unwilling to mount any serious effort to overcome them (but was still head and shoulders above his predecessors in trying to build a C-level athletic department). Bobinski seems to understand how to build something better than that, and actually has taken steps to do so (see: hiring Brohm, not having lost Brohm yet).

As mentioned in this space during the Dark Age, despite what the NCAA would like, college sports doesn't work entirely like a business. You can't #brand and #promote it at the expense of the experience of going to games, because it doesn't work that way. Daniels' background is as close to #brand as you can get without a marketing degree, and Purdue is sending out quite a bit of non-sports material exactly along those lines. From where I sit, criticism of his background is entirely on point.

Good comparison to Brooke's situation

Obvs there are certain things that are a lot different, but their situations are probably about as close as they could be. Brooke came in as a highly-touted recruit, was an immediate starter at DS but clearly behind four-year starter Amanda Neill at libero (Neill was in basically the same role as Peters: four-year starter but only two at libero since Carly Cramer was a fixture there), then was on track to be the starting libero her sophomore season ... but the Boilers landed another solid recruit, Natalie Haben, and Peters stayed at DS. So she had another year of that next-person-up focus instead of the defensive-leader focus she might have been expecting ... and with Haben a year behind her, she might never have ended up at libero.

But Haben got injured, ended up not being able to continue her career, and now Peters is the starting libero, with the job clearly hers if she keeps playing at this level. (It has also seemed the case in the past that Dave Shondell sometimes favored an upperclassman at libero rather than a younger and perhaps better player.) She's done nothing so far this year to suggest anyone else has a crack at her job.

The comparison tails off at that point, since a libero doesn't have nearly the impact on a volleyball defense that a QB has on offense (a closer analogy would be a PG on defense: directing traffic, making some plays, but also heavily reliant on teammates to cover the rest of the court), but if Brandon ends up contributing at a level that mirrors Brooke's path, and if Michigan continues to grow their running game into full-on steamroller mode, maybe certain less-than-optimal things in the football world will be corrected. I miss when I could hang out with friends who are inexplicably MSU or OSU fans (thankfully most of the Ohio friends I have are Team Not-OSU) and talk about Michigan football.

Oh you kids

Middle Guard, or Nose Guard, was the middle position in a 5-man front; back in the ancient days, a lot of teams apparently used that front (surprisingly, in those days Ann Arbor did not teach football in elementary school, so I just have dim memories of things), which is why you'll see MG/NG in '70s stuff, and also why people continue to refer to Offensive Guard (instead of just Guard, like we do with Center) even though there are roughly two generations of fans who have probably never heard of a defensive guard position.

The 3M Pro Football game is where I first remember seeing a 5-man front: we had the 1969 edition, but I think both had a 5-3-3 and a 7-2-2, plus "Pass" and "Kick" defenses. I don't know what they called the guy in the middle of a seven-man line, but I bet someone else here does.

Another Purduebut ...

was that Louisville fumbled the ball away twice at Purdue's 1. One was a legit tackle/strip (on a drive that started at the Purdue 15 because of a fumble on a KO return), but the other was simply a snap that got away from Jackson. If the Cardinals convert one of those, there's not nearly as much drama; if they convert both then it's a completely different game.

Still, I think your recap is on the money. Does Purdue have a chance at (dumbest decision this year by a mile) homecoming? NO. Are they going to be horribly bad like under Hazell? Most likely not. Will they be good enough to escape the West cellar? Hmm, let's look at how Illinois is doing so far ...

I think this came up previously,

but IME you're spot-on that Purdue is extremely unlikely to add men's hockey, in part because the men's club team plays its home games in Fishers, a northeast suburb of Indianapolis.

It's not clear yet how different Bobinski will be from Burke (and King and all his predecessors), but even if there is going to be an increase in fundraising, that money seems earmarked for football-related stuff, mostly, and even at that Ross-Ade still seems to be destined for a split between new, nice seats around a crappy 1930s core, kind of like how Mackey has some nice things around a 1960s core. Diverting a significant amount into a new arena that could be used for hockey (and, say, volleyball, women's basketball, and wrestling - Holloway is too small and badly needs AC, while Mackey is cavernous despite WBB drawing top-25 crowds pretty much every season) seems like it would require a nine-figure gift from someone, since a good chunk of it would go to the two main venues.

And that assumes Bobinski wants to build a Big Ten-caliber athletic program and can help build the interest to maintain it. It sounds like the former may be his intent, but we'll have to see.

In terms of NHL interest, Indy has a long pro hockey history (Gretzky and Messier, right?), but also couldn't sustain even an IHL/CHL team. West Lafayette has its share of Blackhawks fans, even before the recent Cups, but why put that money all the way down I-65 when you could invest it in Evanston?

Minor correction

Purdue was actually a 5/12 upset victim last year, which makes a little more sense because The School Formerly Known As UALR was closer to the top of the remaining conference champions, but that still doesn't make up for the loss.

It's no coincidence that I really would prefer that Purdue stay up in the 4s. I think that the Boilers are much better prepared for that odd, unusual thing that some call Press* this season, but also agree that guard play is the weak spot. (Well, that and foul trouble. Put Teddy V on the floor and anything can happen.)

*I'm not sure which is more odd, that Painter could have learned more about breaking a press simply by staying in the same building and watching the women's team practice, or that Sharon Versyp can simultaneously be disappointing at her job and also know something better than Painter apparently does.

The other good news for Purdue

is that with a new AD, there is a greater-than-0% chance that he understands something about football coaches and whether or not the one you have (or the one you are trying to hire) is any good in your situation. The previous ... er, current lame-duck AD registered a big 0 on that scale.

Hopefully Bobinski is good at raising buyout cash.

Another problem

is that Purdue doesn't have a lights-out shooter to put in the corner for Hammons et al. (Not that they send a guard to the corner often enough anyway - all too often the "post game" is "dump it in to Hammons and get back on D".) So Michigan's free to double, because so what if you leave someone open?

Still another problem is that Purdue's guards do not get themselves open, and a fourth problem is that all too often they settle for passing the ball on the perimeter aimlessly before jacking up a late two that misses. (That's one of the reasons I think Swanigan has a high turnover rate: when he is on the court with Hammons, he frequently makes it a goal to feed AJ. This results in more quality shots - anything AJ puts up near the rim - but also results in more turnovers. I prefer those to 18-foot bricks.)

For a team that shoots FTs so well (among players who get minutes moving forward, only Cline is under .700, and he's only shot 7), Purdue takes a ridiculous number of shots that will not draw fouls.

Those weaknesses were ripe for exploitation by the right coach, and that's not taking into account Purdue's inability to handle any kind of pressure. I think the anomaly was the game in Mackey rather than the game in Crisler.

Home court is part of it

but I think a good bit of the rest is from Purdue's performance in conference play. Michigan's 104.0 OEff was the second-highest Purdue had allowed (only Iowa topped that, at 105.6) at the time, and was only the third 100+ effort the Boilers had conceded (the other two were Vermont (in a game where Purdue was at 140.6) and Florida). Since then, they've done worse than the Iowa game four times (including Iowa II) - they won two of them because they lit up Nebraska and because MSU??, but they also got thoroughly outplayed in three other road games.

Some degree of the defensive problems come from slow rotation - Mathias and Cline are most prone to this, but it's affected pretty much everyone other than Davis (even Hammons, sometimes). I think part of this is because Painter still hasn't found a starting-caliber 2 and part of it is because this team isn't a typical Purdue team defensively - they barely force turnovers at all anyway (only Cal - coached by fellow Keady player Cuonzo Martin - and MSU have lower TO% among power-conference teams), so it's not like there are one or two weak links in a strong team.

The main part is that I think they got in the habit of just funneling people to the hoop and letting Hammons, Haas and Swanigan send them away. That worked just fine in non-conference play when the only speed bumps were a young Florida team with a first-year coach and a Pitt team whose resume has been scuffing itself up in conference play ... except against Butler, who doesn't fall for that kind of stuff. In Big 14 play, it's been another story - too many quality teams, too many coaches who see the obvious and attack it.

That's the other piece. Painter's approach to halftime adjustments has been ... wanting. The in-state joke is that we've been laughing at IU fans for years because they (used to) think Crean is a great coach when he's basically a great recruiter who can't spell coach if you give him the vowels and consonants, but now it seems there may be more than one coach in the state like that, except Painter doesn't always recruit well either. The Iowa game in Mackey was particularly frustrating, because the Boilers played a first half that was far better than anything they'd done to that point ... and when Iowa came out in the second half and switched things up, Painter couldn't or wouldn't adjust.

Beilein seemed to take notes from that game, trying a halfhearted trap a few times because of how effective Iowa was at it (I mean, putting Robinson at midcourt caused Purdue's points to pick up their dribble, and it's not like he's a defensive terror), but unfortunately for Michigan, injuries mean his ability to adjust is limited. I suspect the game in January would have been different if he'd had more bodies regardless of quality, and in Crisler, he'd have that plus the crowd.

Purdue is just 2-3 in Tier A games in conference play, with the wins being MSU Tuesday and Wisconsin back in December when the Badgers were losing every Tier A game they played. (Wisconsin's only won one of those themselves: home to Michigan State.) Saturday is the third of a seven-game stretch that features six Tier A games for Purdue. If there's anyone on the Purdue side of things who feels comfortable with that 1-point spread, even if LeVert is out, I haven't spoken to them.

Four Boilers taken

a nice change from Football Draftageddon, where it would have taken about 176 rounds to find four Purdue players worth drafting. (sigh)

If you're waiting to move Purdue up to the 4 line until one of IU's players is booted for an extra recruit Tom Crean found on the side of the I-69 extension, so you can just swap the two schools, I'm cool with that.

Ah, Cleveland

Cleveland’s Farmer has one idea: What if you could design an offense to minimize the passing deficiencies of modern quarterback prospects?

Obviously this is a hypothetical question, given that Cleveland's needed an offense like this since Bernie Kosar retired and has yet to show one. (Also maybe Cleveland wouldn't think this was as necessary if they didn't keep drafting QBs with serious passing deficiencies.)

I just missed that era

As a freshman at Purdue in '85 (CS major), during orientation, we had a tour of the main terminal room and the adjacent room where people picked up their printouts (from numbered "bins", hanging folders, because you sent your files to the huge dot-matrix printers and the students who worked there would separate the printouts and sort into the bins; obvs you did not want to set your bin to anything divisible by 100, or to the other obvious numbers, otherwise you'd never find your stuff in with all the other underclassmen who thought it was funny to print to bin 69); also in that room were a handful of punch-card readers. Apparently they had recently phased those out for the common folk, so only a few grad students were using them.

I'm grateful for some of the principles I learned when I was there, because holy pants, is a lot of that other stuff outdated now. Even then, things were changing pretty quickly: in six years (I was ... not a devoted student), they'd moved from the monitored dot-matrix printers to self-serve laser printers, and computer labs were popping up on campus - obvs not the way they'd be used now, but the first time I used Office products was in a Mac lab in like 1990.

I'm glad the kids these days (adjusts onion on belt) don't have to go through some of the things we did back in the day.

Virtually no chance Purdue adds hockey

Among other reasons, Morgan Burke likes running a minimal athletic program (if they didn't count indoor and outdoor track separately, Purdue wouldn't even have the full 20 sports for Directors' Cup purposes), and the club team currently plays in Fishers (or other Indy-area suburbs), which is "convenient" the way having UM play on the north side of Detroit would be convenient.

And the budget is small enough that contributions from deep-pocketed alumni (say, Drew Brees) have to go to basic facilities or renovating ancient grounds rather than setting up new facilities, like a college-level hockey arena. Volleyball is probably the second-strongest sport at Purdue, and despite recent renovations to Holloway, it still doesn't have AC, which is kind of a problem when you play 4-8 matches a year in weather that makes a large room with many people in it very, very warm. Baseball and softball got new fields that AIUI are just modern. Ross-Ade expansion had to be put on hold because as you may have noticed, terrible teams at non-football schools don't draw very well, so to no one's surprise except Burke's, there isn't any extra money for anything.

Historically, Purdue's been content to run small-college athletics in a major-college conference. They're simply reaping what they've sown.

FWIW

A.J. Epenesa's sister Sam plays volleyball at Purdue; she was a highly-touted recruit out of Edwardsville HS and has been a solid three-year contributor (she'll be a senior in the fall).

That, plus the fact that Purdue barely garners a mention anywhere with respect to A.J., probably gives the average person perspective on the relative positions of Purdue's volleyball and football programs. (It is true that those sports offered package deals last year for days when both teams played. It's not true that you got a discounted football ticket with a volleyball ticket stub ... but maybe they should have done it that way.)

FWIW, Weber was also a long-time Purdue assistant

and was there with Keady when Painter played. Painter also took over at SIU after Weber left for Illinois.

speaking of bad AD ideas

Yeah, we posted about that when it came out: http://boiledsports.com/2014/heres-a-helmet-idea-that-wasnt-stolen.html. BTN had a follow-up post, and the final product apparently didn't look awful. I could go on at length ...

Michigan has a significant advantage in that the helmet design does not lend itself to Brandonesque clown games. OTOH, maybe a stunt like that would have gotten him fired sooner. (At least other big-money donors are stepping up to oppose Ross now - at least that's how I interpreted Denise Ilitch's public comments. Regent + Ilitch name/money = influence.)