Express Word: Defining Success and assessing progress

The Express Word is GoldandBlack.com’s weekly opinion column, written by Brian Neubert. In today’s edition, we discuss the definition of success for Purdue this season, FCS games and more. If not evident already, this is opinion content and the opinions solely of the author.

PURDUE FOOTBALL AND SUCCESS

Jeff Brohm’s six seasons at Purdue: Success or nah?

Unequivocally, yes, a success.

Quick: Tell me what Brohm’s six-year record was.

Yes, as you’ve already jumped out of your seat to blurt out: 36-34. Two games over .500. The Even Steven-est of cumulative records.

But you don’t remember that, do you? You remember the program’s extraction from the pits of college football hell. You remember the Foster Farm’s Bowl and the Tennessee Music City Bowl and you will still be replaying Ohio State 2018 in your mind on your deathbed. You remember Rondale Moore and David Bell and Aidan O’Connell and George Karlaftis and Tyler Trent.

You don’t remember that the broad outcomes — context-free — were the very epitome of mediocre and forgettable.

Doesn’t mean it wasn’t success, the very concept that ought to be reimagined nowadays, as these new schedules make six wins the new eight, and eight the new 10, for a lot of programs.

So what does success mean for Purdue this season in Year 2 under Ryan Walters? No one at Purdue would paint themselves into a corner by honestly answering that question before a season, nor should any coach, but the underlying context does need to be taken into account.

Last year’s four wins were unfulfilling, but not altogether shocking, given the personnel deficit inherited and schedule encountered. Now, this is more Walters’ team and comfort between both staff and roster should be more apparent, but that daunting schedule from a year ago is now something more, as the Big Ten ridiculously added the Pac-4 for no good reason, other than TV getting what TV wants, like a bratty toddler seeing candy at the store.

Big Ten Bloat dovetails with Notre Dame coming back the same year Purdue lives up to this agreement to visit Oregon State, scheduled in a very different world than exists now. Purdue should never do this traveling-west-in-September thing again, save for showcase opportunities too good to pass up. I’d cite the ’98 Pigskin Classic at USC, but A) some of you maybe hadn’t been born yet, B) that would now be a conference game and C) I don’t want to trigger my PTSD from the heat that day. Purdue should schedule as many wins in non-conference as it can get from here on out, and apologize to no one for doing so.

But FCS Indiana State should — should — be Purdue’s lone lay-up of this season.

After that, Purdue has four presumed Playoff contenders on the schedule, a non-conference trip to Bigfoot Country in the Pacific Northwest and three or four of its most winnable Big Ten games on the road.

This is a cop-out take that I’m guessing readers are tiring of, but the win total or bowl locale isn’t the end-all, be-all anymore. You know success when you see it, and you know a foundation when you see it.

That said, some boxes for Purdue to ideally check this season, because I know how you like a good old-fashioned box-checking:

Interest and engagement from fans and recruits: So far so good.
Player development: Are players improving and developing physically from one year to the next? The offensive line this season comes to mind, since it actually has returnees. Will Heldt is another litmus test sort.
Hope: Can Purdue be competitive and interesting and just fun enough for people to come to the stadium for Notre Dame, Oregon or Penn State weekends thinking, “Hey, you never know.”
The offense: Does Air Raid-derived offense — not all that dissimilar from what the Brohms did — work in the Big Ten, against Big Ten physicality and the talent the league’s best of the best will have, with ample California speed now mixed in? Can it complement a defense that should — should — be Purdue’s calling card in time. By that I mean an offense that, yes, makes big plays and pressures defenses vertically, but also doesn’t turn the ball over much and can possess the ball consistently enough to keep the defense off the field. You can’t throw picks and go three-and-out a half dozen times a game and expect your defense to be worth a damn.
Assessing transfers: Is Purdue getting the right guys, players good enough to help who aren’t miscast at Purdue University, in the middle of a cornfield? It’s hard, but this is the game now, these shotgun portal weddings that coaches’ jobs depend on. Times are changing but history does reflect the importance of bringing the right type of kid to Purdue.

Just some of the many underlying indicators to consider when gauging success this season, in my opinion.

ON INDIANA STATE

Beating this topic into the dirt: This game, Purdue vs. Indiana State, this should happen every year. If not Indiana State, the Ball State, or Central Michigan, or Illinois State, or SEMO.

For one thing, yes, it behooves programs who aren’t better than everyone else to schedule wins. It’s OK. No one should apologize for it. It’s not like you’re losing money playing a home game.

Second, the developmental opportunity that comes with a de facto preseason game is very, very real, now more than ever because half the team still has its name tags on from June. Real-life reps in low-stakes situations — and yes, that’s taking a lot for granted — in Week 1 makes you better in Weeks 2 through 12 and offsets injury worry.

Third, this is how the rest of college football survives. It is not the Big Ten’s or SEC’s responsibility to look out for the little guy, only to consume them by taking all the money and players, but what’s wrong with being a good steward for your sport and giving Ball State 5 percent of its yearly athletic budget to play one football game?

Further, and this is the strangest point I can make, these games are great showcases for low- and mid-major players who want to move up. Inevitably some Sycamore is going to catch a touchdown or record a sack or kick a field goal at Purdue Saturday, valuable tape for when that player hits “return” (fittingly) on his portal filing come December.

You could never require these games, but it would be A-OK for these leagues to just do it every year. The SEC already does with its in-season, pre-rivalry week horse-and-pony-shows against the Sun Belt. Alabama plays Mercer this year. Its starters will treat it like the Pro Bowl.

TV may not love it, but TV is sure as hell gonna broadcast it no matter what, right?

RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK

• Twice now in as many recruiting classes there has been an in-state player I just immediately knew Matt Painter was going to take, even though they weren’t necessarily the biggest names with the biggest profiles. It was Jack Benter last year and Luke Ertel for 2026.

They both just oozed qualities Painter covets and there was just no way he was passing on either of them.

No telling, obviously, at this moment how either’s Boilermaker career will turn out, but a reminder that the man is a coach of conviction, resolute in his basketball beliefs, the results of which can’t be argued against.

Ertel is an indicator that Painter will sidestep the first pitfall that could have come post-Final Four: The impulse to chase a different kind of player than those that got you to the mountaintop. That pitfall is real.

• What a bummer for fans coming Saturday that some of Purdue’s most exciting newcomers are hurt. CJ Smith and Nyland Green, specifically. That’s the fun of Week 1 in these weird new times.

• Ideally on Saturday, Purdue comes out firing and has the game in hand at half, and Hudson Card can take a figurative seat sometime in the third quarter.

Then come the big-picture considerations Purdue ought to have in mind.

If you think freshman Marcos Davila is next man up next season, get him experience now. Accelerate his development by playing him and in the process get the best idea possible what you have to work with come spring.

Get freshmen out there. Help them improve through experience. Make them feel like they’re part of things. How much point is there anymore in preserving redshirts?

The present matters most, but the future ought to be top of mind, as well, in moments when the mind can wander.

• I should probably clear some old photos off my computer.