Three Thoughts From The Weekend: Back to No. 1, Purdue football season and more
GoldandBlack.com’s Three Thoughts from the Weekend column runs every Monday morning, with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting or whatever else comes to mind. In this week’s edition, we discuss Purdue-Arizona, football recruiting and more.
ON PURDUE VS. ARIZONA
So this weekend, Purdue experiences a bit of a fun role reversal, being the lower-ranked team at the Indy Classic, where the third-ranked Boilermakers will meet top-ranked Arizona.
Do rankings really determine outcomes or matter that much at all? Nope. But for three straight years now from mid-November into the resumption of Big Ten play, Purdue’s taken top billing. Now it shares it, at best.
This will be a Final Four sort of game to essentially close the toughest non-conference schedule in school history. If Purdue wins, it’ll be unbeaten in out-of-conference play for the third year straight and will likely retake No. 1 next week.
And if being No. 1 comes with a burden — heavy lies the crown — then for once this time of year, that’s Purdue’s opponent’s problem. Purdue’s approach should never change regardless of the number next to its name or its opponent’s but here’s a rare opportunity for the Boilermakers to maybe try on the role of underdog ad see how it fits.
It’s another great stage, too, for Purdue to showcase its not one, but two, All-Americans to be: Zach Edey and Braden Smith.
Purdue coach Ryan Walters (Chad Krockover)
ON PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Having a hard time keeping track of all this? Can’t keep DJ Allen and D.J. Wingfield straight?
You’re not alone. College football folks everywhere’s heads are spinning these days, coaches included. College football keeps adding layers of catnip to keep its fans and coaches in a perpetual manic state and the transfer portal is the newest intoxicant, and the most potent.
Purdue added a lot of guys this weekend, with more to come, who need to be good next season for Purdue to have a chance to flip its record against a schedule that won’t be for the faint of heart.
But I want to make this under-served point. People look at the portal as a marketplace of immediate answers and quick fixes, last pieces of the puzzle. It’s not just that. It’s the puzzle, period. It’s to college football roster construction what vowels are to Scrabble.
Places like Purdue, you’re looking for difference-makers, for sure, but also your rank and file, because your prior rank and file is visiting Middle Tennessee this weekend.
The face I’d put on this is Joey Tanona, the Notre Dame transfer who’s endured some circumstances, but is absolutely worth a shot for Purdue. Bet on talent.
Purdue can take its time with Tanona, try to take its time developing him and letting him ease back into things. That’s OK, even if it might fly in the face of how we’d normally perceive transfers.
A lot of these transferring players would be wise to perceive themselves accordingly, too. Patience is dead in this business, but a lot of these guys are going to have to find some at their new schools, because that school just recruited three other 21-year-olds at your position, too.
People want the ready-made senior to help win now. Cool. But don’t overlook the importance of finding the sophomore with the right raw materials and the right mindset to be part of your program for years. At some point, continuity has to matter.
Purdue’s Zach Edey is the top returning player in college basketball (John E. Sokolowski/USA Today Sports)
ON ZACH EDEY
I shouldn’t even be platforming this stuff, but I do want to make a point about the back-handed compliment Zach Edey is receiving from Ugly American Sports Culture.
He’s so good, so unguardable, so accomplished that he’s now passed over that line where positivity gives way to polarization.
It happens. People disliked Tyler Hansbrough years back for being too good for too long. At a much grander scale, you know how people’s opinions get split on Tom Brady, Duke Basketball or Derek Jeter when they just win too much and make no waves doing it, or when LeBron James dares to challenge anyone else’s legacy. We tear them down. It used to be where we propped them up. Now, we tear them down, because it sells. I’ve always wondered what it would have looked like had Michael Jordan lived in this social-media-and-smartphone era. Wouldn’t be pretty.
Troll Media is a thing in media these days. Skip Bayless has made millions and many others have made careers off simply being the performative contrarian, purposefully ignorant and intellectually dishonest, when LeBron was peaking. Dan Dakich tried it in Indy with Andrew Luck when Luck’s approval rating and stature within his sport was unimpeachable. “I’m the only one with the balls to say this!”
Now, Edey seems to be reaching a point where he is becoming more of a target of people who, at best, don’t understand what they’re talking about or, at worst, are being intentionally ignorant. For the sweet, sweet nectar of engagement. It’s someone name Aaron Torres, who works for FOX, never a company to shy away from appealing to the lowest common denominator for clicks. This is the perfect nexus of dishonest contrarianism meeting the reality that there are way too many fans covering sports nowadays (and consumers don’t care or are too media illiterate to understand the difference).
I’m sure Aaron was appalled when Trayce Jackson-Davis (deservedly) shot eight more free throws in Big Ten play last season, because he was a superhero who no one was quick or athletic enough to guard, right?
Right?
I love sports, but I hate what sports turns us into.
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