Express Word: Complementary football and hoops

The Express Word is GoldandBlack.com’s weekly opinion column, written by Brian Neubert. In today’s edition, we discuss Purdue’s offensive direction, Big Ten basketball and more.

ON PURDUE OFFENSE

The Air Raid was a shot worth taking for Purdue, a nod to its offense- and quarterback-driven history and a means to ease the mixed emotions that might have come with the hiring of a defensive coach.

But there were always going to be fine lines to walk, as Ryan Walters’ repeated use of the term “complementary football” always brings to mind. I wrote about this as soon as Walters was hired and even more after Graham Harrell came in with him, that you “complement” a defense by possessing the football and not making mistakes. “Complementary football” is what Iowa does on offense, which is basically nothing, averse to getting in the way of its physical and disciplined defense and elite special teams.

Pass-heavy schemes for which interceptions and three-and-outs and 22-second possessions are just the cost of doing business is the opposite.

Does that mean the Air Raid could never have worked at Purdue in conjunction with it building the sort of defense Walters had at Illinois? Certainly not.

In a lot of ways, “Air Raid” is a bad name, because at its core, Air Raid is possession football. You just have to be really freaking good at it. You have to have bedrock passing plays you can block, throw and catch with consistency, to the point you can complete 70 percent of them, be great on third down and have a de facto running game, only with passes thrown by an accurate, decisive and mistake-proof quarterback. Once you get rhythm and defenses adjust then you play off it with big-play strikes and timely running.

It is pretty simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy.

That’s where the Air Raid failed, just in the nuts and bolts of building a consistent and rhythmic possession-oriented passing game built on high-percentage throws.

That doesn’t mean that sort of thing can’t happen at Purdue. It has before. It just didn’t this time, not all of which was a coordinator’s fault.

But in this one blowhard’s opinion, wherever this goes from here, Purdue shouldn’t run kicking and screaming from running from a high-volume-passing direction, because you need to set yourself apart offensively nowadays at a place like Purdue and you have to get good quarterbacks. And, a hundred other reasons.

Shifting to a less modern offense now for the purpose of helping a work-in-progress defense would be really hard, because you can’t trade for Michigan’s offensive line to run behind.

Purdue ought to tweak some things, get some new ideas and definitely keep trying to improve the talent level at all, um, costs, but it shouldn’t necessarily burn the whole thing down and start from scratch.

ON PURDUE BASKETBALL

Greetings from Chicago, where the Big Ten, now looking more like the United Nations these days, is having its basketball media days. The preseason polls are out now, and Purdue is the rightful preseason favorite and Braden Smith the rightful preseason player-of-the-year.

Very worthy on both fronts, the Boilermakers are, but also the biggest known in the conference, a funny thing to say given the loss of Zach Edey, but inarguable.

Everyone else: Transfers, freshmen, new coaches and the absolute novelty that come with the stupid additions of these four western schools.

No one knows what to expect from almost all these schools.

Edey or not, everyone should know what to expect from Purdue. It has tremendous pillars in place: Experience, continuity, “culture” and a great backcourt.

But now we will see Purdue in a slightly different light. The Boilermakers were quietly irate last season and came out like Darth Vader because of it. There really was an eerie sort of inhumanity about that team that you saw up close in those NCAA Tournament locker rooms. Almost a coldness, a detachment. I called it “professionalism” more than anything, but it was different, and it stemmed from anger and embarrassment.

Matt Painter always welcomes angst, players being “on edge.” In that sense, last season was a dream come true brought on by a nightmare.

Now, Purdue’s challenge could be staying that way. Players who’ve thrived on being slighted are now being lauded and a team mocked previously got the last laugh (or second-to-last laugh, I guess you’d say).

I wouldn’t expect there to be any issues there. By every indication both spoken or observed, this is a pretty internally motivated and proud group for which vanity is not a priority.

But this Big Ten media days setting here in the fuel fumes and incessant traffic of O’Hare does frame Purdue’s new context well.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK

• Purdue is building a nice, versatile backcourt group for the future, Antione West‘s commitment this week being the latest piece, as his height, length and pure scoring potential should fit well with Gicarri Harris‘ and CJ Cox‘s physicality, defensive punch and expected shot-making.

Now, even with Luke Ertel already commitment, I’d think another purer point guard would be a priority for 2026.

• The bad news for whatever Purdue does from an offensive direction perspective is that it will have to do it with inexperience at quarterback and without question, a less talented. Hudson Card was a two-year window of opportunity for the program that has to this point been mostly squandered.

• Trey Kaufman-Renn was not on the Big Ten’s 10-man preseason all-conference team in either of the major polls that came out. I was likely his only vote in both. He’ll be on the end-of-season list, though.

On an aside, 10-man all-conference team in an 18-school league isn’t enough.