Express Word: College FB coaching hiring peril, Purdue hoops

The Express Word is GoldandBlack.com’s weekly opinion column, written by Brian Neubert. In today’s edition, our annual preseason basketball predictions.

ON FOOTBALL COACHING HIRES

This weekend in the Big Ten, USC and Nebraska play, both of them struggling mightily in the context of their programs’ histories and expectations and really surprisingly in light of the hires they most recently made.

Lincoln Riley was the home run hire of all home run hires, the young offensive wizard, prolific producer of Heisman winners and a quarterback genius at a quarterback school, right in the middle of one of college football’s talent epicenters.

It was perfect.

Riley may get fired after one season of Big Ten football.

Then there’s Nebraska’s Matt Rhule, the belle of the ball during last year’s hiring cycle and an indisputable central-casting sort of hire for a program that’s been stuck chasing the ghosts of its past.

Rhule may yet be that guy, but after three-straight losses, it’s getting kind of Frost-y in Lincoln in Year 2.

Meanwhile, Curt Cignetti at Indiana of all places is about to be national coach-of-the-year at the age of 63 after only now getting a chance to run a major program. Most fanbases, had their schools hired a 60-something-old with very little name recognition nor a terribly overwhelming résumé, they’d have yawned. Cignetti first had to beg, then had to win, to get people to even care he was there.

But back to the perfect hires that weren’t. Billy Napier at Florida, Tom Herman at Texas, Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M, Scott Frost at Nebraska, Luke Fickell at Wisconsin, Chip Kelly at UCLA, all guys who come to mind as “the guy”-type hires who didn’t live up, or at least haven’t yet.

Hiring assistant coaches is a risk. But that hasn’t stopped Georgia, Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame from going that route and that group has shown over many, many years that they have a pretty good idea what they’re doing.

It’s a reminder that this stuff is really hard and is only about to get harder, because in college football money isn’t just theory anymore. It’s a more finite resource now that everybody has to free up $20-some mil for the athletes.

There’s no right way or wrong way to hire a coach, no guarantees ever.

You just have to do your due diligence, find somebody you like and go with your gut. You win some, you lose some.

AFTER FIVE GAMES

Purdue has now put its uniforms on for five competitions against different schools, three real games and two exhibitions.

The best things that have happened so far …
• Myles Colvin‘s apparent coming of age as a two-way player.
He has at least shown glimpses that he is making the steps he has needed to make to really be a critical piece for Purdue.
• Gicarri Harris and CJ Cox are ready.
They’re both making impacts on D, giving Purdue solid guard minutes, taking some burden off Braden Smith and providing some extra offensive punch, especially Cox.
• Trey Kaufman-Renn‘s reading of defenses and passing.
There’s no overstating the importance of this. He’s done an excellent job. If he can keep just in the ballpark of his current plus assist-to-turnover ratio, that would be as impressive as any other statistic he could record, but that’s a big ask for his position and role.
• Fletcher Loyer. All of it.
It’s early, but he’s been tremendous, arguably Purdue’s best player.

The not-so-great things …
• The center situation is a question. At some point, Daniel Jacobsen‘s absence is going to really be felt.
• Team defense just isn’t near what Purdue needs it to be to be a great team, but improvement can be expected.
• It’s not the volume of turnovers as much as the ugliness of many of them, the unforced nature of them. Granted, there’s been a lot of garbage time.
• Building off those last two points, Purdue doesn’t look quite as cohesive as it would ideally be, only part of that issue relating to actually having freshmen out there this season.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK

• I suspect Purdue is going to need Friday night against No. 2 Alabama to be one of those classic Mackey Arena games where the building itself becomes a living, breathing thing and either turns the Boilermakers into something much more or the opponent into something much less.

Stops are going to be so difficult to come by, as might be rebounds. Purdue is going to need help.

• Senior Day in football now is so weird, because what used to be an occasion dominated by fourth- and fifth-year players is now littered with short-timers, portal fodder.

Saturday’s senior festivities will be held against the backdrop of what may end up being the worst season in school history and could be a reminder that nowadays, portal outcomes equal game-day outcomes.

Purdue has not fared well in the transfer market. Hudson Card‘s two seasons at Purdue did not go as anyone hoped or expected and I think the player is only partially to blame for that.

Otherwise, Purdue has lost better players than it has pulled from the transfer ether, and that’s part of the story of how this season has gone the way it has. There’s a universe where Deion Burks and Garrett Miller would be going through senior day this weekend and Nic Scourton would be playing his last game at Purdue before entering the NFL.

The exports proved this season to be way better than the imports. But that’s college football now. Ask Florida State what a bad portal cycle can do.

But give some of these guys who’ll walk on Saturday some credit for sticking it out at Purdue. Card, Marcus Mbow, Gus Hartwig, Kydran Jenkins, guys like that could all just as soon have bolted after last season and gotten more money someplace else and probably wouldn’t have experienced what they’re experiencing now, not that anyone saw this coming.

• I don’t know what Purdue will do about Ryan Walters after the season, but it sure seems like everything is pointing toward him getting Year 3, but with significant staff changes.

The one must in whatever new hires are to come: Experience. This staff as it was first put together was too young, too inexperienced and too immature, quite frankly.