Express Word: QB situation, college FB economics and more

The Express Word is GoldandBlack.com’s weekly opinion column, written by Brian Neubert. In today’s edition, we discuss the complexities of college sports these days and more.

ON PURDUE QUARTERBACK PLAY

I can’t offer an opinion on who Purdue should roll with at quarterback. I haven’t seen any practice, and probably wouldn’t want to develop strong opinions either way anyway as a bystander when everything on that field is brand new.

I think if I were invested in the matter, I’d like the idea of Malachi Singleton over Ryan Browne, but only because Singleton seemed like the guy Purdue’s new staff ran right to. But him apparently exiting spring having not been able to bring some measure of known to the position opened the door for Browne, whose experience at Purdue is meaningless. It just means he knows where to park on Chauncey Hill to get to Chipotle, which admittedly can be tricky. Otherwise, the system is different, the coaches are different and save for Devin Mockobee, every face around him is different.

I want to say this: I don’t know if Browne can make enough drop-back throws to win at a really high level. But I know no more about Singleton’s ability to do that either. I know Singleton won a game for Arkansas over Tennessee. But I also know Browne basically won a game for Purdue at Illinois. People forget that Purdue got robbed by a blown call that would have ended that game and made Browne the hero, though it certainly didn’t hurt that his coach literally wrote Illinois’ defensive playbook and taught its remaining coaches what to call and when.

I think as many ties to 1-11 should be cut as possible, but it’s not fair at all to hold that against Browne.

They both can run. It’s as much up to the coaches to leverage that asset with smart game-planning.

It should come down to passing rhythm. If you want to run the ball, which you obviously do with Mockobee, a mobile QB and a seasoned offensive line, you’re not doing it against 10-man fronts. You have to make playaction throws, misdirection plays and enough easy completions to make defenses uncomfortable. I’m not speaking to specifics of what Purdue wants to do offensively; I’m just speaking to obvious offensive logic. Your running game is you’re passing game and your passing game is your running game the same way your pass rush is your pass defense and your pass defense is your pass rush. It’s all connected.

But, if I was invested in this matter, I wouldn’t be terribly receptive to two-quarterback talk beyond the needing-a-reliable-second-guy part. Quarterback rotations never work and everything’s already so new. Letting a group grow together and gain some continuity and see what happens. In my opinion.

Pick the guy who throws it best and makes the better decisions and stick with him for a while.

ON BIG FOOTBALL’S BLIND SPOT

As the Big Ten and SEC move into the Revenue Sharing Era, they’d be wise to pay close attention to the shifting media landscape, because their business model depends on it and that model is based on what I think is a very flawed assumption.

Few years back, the Big Ten landed a football-driven billion-dollar media rights deal that fundamentally changed the conference. When the SEC re-ups, they’ll get more, perhaps.

But when the Big Ten brought its product to market, it finished with partners from three different media corporations: NBC, CBS, and FOX/BTN. ESPN/ABC didn’t make the cut and there’s no telling how many streaming services might have kicked some tires or even submitted unsuccessful bids.

Point is, it was a seller’s market if there ever was one. You had all the heavyweight broadcasting brands drooling over DVR-proof live sports. They were all trying to give their advertisers effective pitches and they were trying to launch streaming businesses in silos, having little idea how to do it in a post-linear-cable world.

In effect, you had supply at a moment of peak demand and, well, real urgency.

Now, let’s look at that media landscape and how different it looks from just a year ago.

CBS is now owned by Skydance and who knows how David Ellison will spend his money while Daddy spends his buying quarterbacks for Michigan.

NBC now has an NBA stake to feed the Peacock in addition to an NFL share and Notre Dame. Does it still really need the Big Ten?

Meanwhile, ESPN and FOX, mortal enemies in the college sports space, are now bundle buddies, perhaps the beginning of what’s bound to be a consolidation trend in the streaming world, where ESPN is already tethered to Hulu, Disney, etc.; HBO has partnered with everyone at one time or another, seems like; and CBS/Paramount/Whatever The Hell is trying to get its service more traction. All the while ESPN launches a new service and retooled app under the bold and visionary leadership of Jimmy Pitaro, proof once again that Corporate America can be awfully kind to those with no real ideas, but fewer enemies. He just handed over an ownership stake of sports media’s signature brand to the league it covers in exchange for magic beans.

Long story not-so-short: This stuff changes all the time, we can’t be certain where technology or the economy are going and for all we know, the next media-rights negotiations may involve fewer interested parties in addition to those who just might not be inclined to spend as much money on properties they’re still figuring out the ROI on.

Big Football is operating under the assumption the money will keep increasing with every new deal. That assumption is why the Pacific Ocean is now Big Ten Country.

The revenue-sharing model is built around the assumption of escalation, that the media partners who are ostensibly paying the athletes are going to keep giving over more and more money and making those “salaries” increase.

Will they?

Are we sure?

The undercurrents that’ll ultimately determine that are playing out in board rooms right now.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK

• Pretty devastating deal for Rondale Moore, suffering another season-ending knee injury. You have to think his career at this point is in jeopardy. His fear of injury at Purdue was clearly apparent and it’s kind of a cruel twist how this turned out. Tough business.

But what a special athlete.

I’m no doctor nor am I a physiologist, but I wonder sometimes about how well some of these really tuned-up, fast-twitch guys are built to last sometimes. Human beings aren’t made to move that fast or that quick, especially when paired with football’s daily grind. If you drive your Corvette to the grocery store every day on crappy pavement, how long is that car going remain at optimal performance, or even on the road at all?

• It’s weird that my dog is scared of laundry.

• It’s cool and all that college basketball discussion has become so analytics-driven, but is kinda silly how it’s turned players, teams, conferences and seasons into the back of a baseball card. Thumbnail sketches kill context, ignore the why amidst the what and just paint incomplete pictures. Like, you might look at some team’s offensive rebounding percentage but make no mention of whether a team even sends people to the offensive glass, for example.

There’s a lane here for people to craft team-specific metrics that tell stories of teams better than the broad data does.

For Purdue this season we (meaning either me or someone much, much smarter) should develop something that reflects the impact of size, something that incorporates defensive rebounding percentage, opponents’ percentages at the rim, fouls, etc. It really is the most important angle, I think.

When Zach Edey was at Purdue, it was too labor intensive to track the foul toll he took on opponents and the points that came from it, and there was no way to really reflect wear and tear and production opponents missed out on due to important players being on the bench or zapped of their energy and/or will.

Plus/minus is flawed in most cases. There have to be better ways to do this.