Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/428024
Y ou may agree or you may not, but this recently con- cluded Purdue football sea- son was not a successful one. Rather, it was a failure, and I say that not taking the meaning of the word "failure" lightly. I also say that keenly aware of the litany of met- rics that would suggest otherwise, whether it be win total (tripled), scor- ing total (plus-107), competitiveness quotient (exponential) or the simple eye-ball test (barely recognizable in most games). Purdue took steps, an enduring truth that can't be stricken from the record. In the ultimate position of upward mobility given the depths reached in 2013, the Boilermakers looked like they belonged on the field in most games they played this season against Big Ten competition. You saw intangibles: More tough - ness, more fight, more investment, and so on. There was a three-week run of what seemed at the time like magic, a fuel-injected offense that looked noth- ing like the toothless group that sput- tered through an entire season the year prior. That run of quality foot- ball led to one win and two exhilarating losses, a should- have win at Minnesota com- ing and going and a game in which the Boilermakers stacked up against mighty Michigan State more favor- ably than anyone could have anticipated. Those things happened. They're written in ink in the his- tory books now, a period of polar- opposite football from what was seen last season and signs, however fleeting they may have been, of an emerging competitor. What it bred was hope. But when all was said and done and Purdue came off the Memorial Stadium field Bucket-less again, the rug having been pulled out from under it by an Indiana team that entered the afternoon with an 0-7 Big Ten record, a third-string, emergency quarterback and a sieve of a defense, all that prog - ress didn't matter all that much. There were successes, but the totality of the 2014 season was not a success. For one reason, progress is great, if it's sustained. Purdue's wasn't. The offense was simply figured out by op- ponents and its passing game under- cut by Danny Anthrop's injury more so than the loss of any one player should have undercut it. Prior to the final two games, con- ventional thinking — or the manufac- tured media narrative, but whatever — was that they were a chance for Purdue to "validate" the undeniable progress made to that point. What's the opposite of validate? Whatever it is, that's what happened as Purdue turned the ball over five times against a beatable Northwestern team then locked up like a deadbolt time and again in the red zone at Indiana. Purdue made progress, yes, but ended the season on the decline. Hard to call that "success." Second, one of the absolute musts for this season was for Purdue to finally get quarterback un - der control, for some measure of stabil- ity to be found at the crucial position. Dan- ny Etling failed; Aus- tin Appleby thrived, for a while, but ultimately did nothing in the final analysis to secure the posi- tion short-term, let alone long-term. Lastly, there's the critical aim of en- gaging the fan base. "Miserable" ticket sales — A.D. Morgan Burke's word, not mine — have the department drawing from reserve funds, per Burke. A face was put on that reality — product of the $3-million football- revenue shortfall Burke cites — by a Northwestern game crowd you prob- ably could have counted on two hands if you had 20,000 fingers. On that front, Purdue ended the season no better off than it started it. For these reasons, the season was a failure. That does not yet mean the en- deavor, this rebuilding project under Darrell Hazell, is. It's just that by any reasonable measure, things are off schedule and may only get more challenging from here. j Neubert can be contacted at BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com F R O M E D I T O R B R I A N N E U B E R T Behind Schedule GOLDANDBLACK EXPRESS • VOLUME 25, EXPRESS 13 • 4