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Gold and Black Radio: Purdue readies for busy Black Friday

by: Derek Schultz11 hours ago


In the Nov. 25 edition of Gold and Black Radio, host Derek Schultz talks Old Oaken Bucket battle with Tom Dienhart and Dub Jellison and some Purdue hoops with Brian Neubert as both teams ready for action on Black Friday (Nov. 28)

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ON PURDUE FOOTBALL (excerpt from Brian Neubert’s Three Thoughts Column(

Curt Cignetti has made a lot of new coaching hires around the country look really bad. He’s also made the Hiring State — ADs, search firms, agents — look really bad for letting him turn 60 before really getting a shot.

It’s a very different era, but IU has its Joe Tiller. Purdue missed its shot back in those days to make that a sustainable entity, and that’s now the challenge for Indiana, who’ll have to rebuild its teams every year now, starting with the quarterback and the losses of the James Madison core that has driven this surge. At some point, the financials get tricky now that IU’s basketball-driven NIL warchests had to be emptied last year. If rules are adhered to and IU maxes out its $20-some-million rev-share cap, dividing that money between red-hot football and its demanding coach and the basketball program that’s been a sacred money pit for some time now. adidas will do its part to help basketball, but that doesn’t mean the on-the-books numbers will be easy to square up. (But it’s not all about money; it’s about sustaining the underdog sugar rush and belief Cignetti did an unbelievable job creating.)

Purdue’s in the same boat, but one difference is it runs a basketball program far less dependent on money to win. And football is trying to get good as opposed to staying good. I’m not sure which is the greater or more expensive challenge.

This weekend’s Purdue-IU game, on paper, should be one-sided, and I say that respectfully to a Boilermaker program that should have four wins right now. I guess that’s not really a compliment, but whatever.

IU is on top of the world and Purdue is in dreck. Historically in this rivalry, those have been the roles the two schools have weaved in and out of. There’s probably no real reason this has to remain true because in-state recruiting matters so much less now, but there haven’t been all that many periods of time historically in which both programs were good at the same time.

This certainly isn’t one, but it is a reminder too that history shows us the cyclical nature of all this, so if you think Purdue is forever doomed because Indiana is great right now, don’t.

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