Express Thoughts: Fundamental football, Purdue’s recruiting urgency

GoldandBlack.com’s Express Thoughts from the Weekend column, with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting, or whatever else comes to mind.

ON PURDUE FOOTBALL

I’m going to keep this brief since there’s so much coverage and discussion to come on Purdue football’s situation, but I do want to make one point up front.

Maybe Purdue gets a sitting head coach or maybe another assistant. Maybe it gets an offensive coach, maybe a defensive coach. Maybe an older guy or maybe a younger guy.

But for this next guy to be the right guy, there’s one important box that Purdue ought to try to check: Discipline and detail. I guess that’s two boxes, come to think of it.

The past two Purdue staffs — and for as many great things as Jeff Brohm did at Purdue, this is just a fact — fielded teams that beat themselves. Discipline was an issue for both staffs, mostly in the form of penalties. Tackling at Purdue has been generally poor. Special teams have cost both staffs games. In all three phases, that nebulous concept of “execution” has been un-even at best. That’s quality control, a standard that has to trickle down from the head coach.

The coaches who step right in and turn things around, they do it like this.

They fortify the load-bearing walls of the game. It’s easier said than done, but they put disciplined and sharp teams — physically and mentally — out there. If Purdue could have done that this season, things would have been different, not like 11-1 different but maybe 3-7 different. If Brohm could have done that consistently, his teams win at least another game or two a year.

Don’t be afraid to hire the boring old stickler.

ON THE PORTAL AND SIGNING DAY

All that matters at this moment is the hire. Then personnel matters come into focus.

These high school kids who may or may not sign this week aren’t that big a deal. Binding paperwork anymore is as useful as a wet cocktail napkin anyway. And high school recruits are just darts thrown at a very small board. For many of them, signing day will be one of the few days you’re even aware of them.

Quick: Name the Purdue freshmen in games this season. See?

You do not rush this hire because of the negligible number of commitments Walters and his staff left behind.

The important part of the portal portion of it is in getting guys more than it is keeping them.

This is going to sound harsh, but a guy on YouTube told me my takes aren’t hot enough:

If you have reservations about playing for a staff you don’t know and want to put your name in the portal, that makes sense. Seems like good business to me.

But if you were part of 1-11 and want more money to stay, the door is over there.

ON SAN DIEGO

Hey, basketball.

After Purdue won the Rady Children’s Invitational this past week, this again bears mentioning: Purdue people again took over an MTE site. At the end of that wild Ole Miss game, that Liontree Arena place was host to an honest-to-goodness Boilermaker home game.

This is the case every year — Hawaii, Connecticut, Portland, Atlantis, Connecticut, wherever.

That’s what happens when you are a basketball-crazy school with an alumni base that branches out to the coasts or major metros for tech, science, engineering and other such jobs. Wherever Purdue goes, it’s near fans with money who don’t often get to see their team play, and they’re damn excited to when they get the chance.