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Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/232716
Q & A : basketball alike are always good defensively, because they play like it's their goal to put your teeth in the back of your throat. It's why Stanford football is good, because it sets out to remind you every snap how much tougher and smarter they are than you, playing football with all the nuance of an AC/DC concert. Or Oregon football, which plays how it looks: Flashy, bright, fast, sometimes obnoxious. An identity is a foundation, the sort of foundation Purdue has historically stacked victory after victory on in basketball and the same sort of thing Darrell Hazell and his staff are looking to find/construct in football. Something Hazell knows he can hang his mangled hat on each and every game day as he tries to get this ship righted after it took on 11 losses worth of water in 2013. It was a season in which the new coaching staff was more or less chased out of their best-laid plans midseason, shifting gears dramatically on both sides of the ball on the fly. Basketball on grass is no more, the pass-happy spread offense completely played out. What's next for Purdue football? Before you can find the right formula, you have to find the right players, the foundation's foundation. It has to start somewhere. And in college sports, it always starts with recruiting. But it doesn't end with recruiting. Painter's got all the makings of an NCAA Tournament team. He has players. He has one of his most physically able and deepest teams at Purdue, but one that has yet to show it can play Purdue-type basketball for more than stretches here and there. It's a team that doesn't seem to listen, as if its coach is Charlie Brown's teacher on the practice floor or something. Wah, wah … wah, wah, wah. Identities aren't supposed to come and go from game to game, possession to possession. They're supposed to be as static as the physical structures the games are played in. For basketball, at least lately, they have not been; for football, they're a work in progress. But in both cases, they're absolutely paramount to Purdue's success. j Neubert can be contacted at BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com f D A R R E L L H A Z E L L Wanted: Confidence Hazell points to trait as key piece for 2014 Tom Campbell Darrell Hazell's first season at Purdue didn't go smoothly, but, outwardly, it'd be hard to tell. Hazell has largely stayed positive, optimistic and confident in his plan. BY STACY CLARDIE SClardie@GoldandBlack.com A complete evaluation of Purdue's program — from coaches to personnel to schemes to how personnel fits schemes to how meetings are run to how time is spent — will be done this offseason. Darrell Hazell isn't happy with what transpired in his first season as the Boilermakers' coach: a 1-11 record that included going winless in Big Ten play. But Hazell remains resolute about the promise of the program, while also knowing there are major issues to address based on what happened in 2013 to get the Boilermakers untracked. About three weeks after Purdue ended its season, Hazell sat down with three reporters. Here's an excerpt of that nearly 30-minute interview. Gold and Black: After the Indiana game, you said you had an idea of what went wrong this season but didn't expound. Now that you've had a couple IllustrateD volume 24, issue 3 15