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50 GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATE VOLUME 26, ISSUE 3 BY STACY CLARDIE SClardie@GoldandBlack.com M organ Burke knew there was no denying it: Purdue had a "disappointing" season in foot- ball in 2015. A 2-10 campaign ended with a third consecutive loss to rival Indiana, dropping Darrell Hazell's record to 6-30 while head coach of the Boilermakers. Though Burke said in a postseason press conference in early December that while the program didn't meet his, the staff's or the fans' expectations, he thought there were bright spots. He pointed to freshman run- ning back Markell Jones' season. He mentioned red- shirt freshman Cole Herdman, sophomore running back D.J. Knox and junior defensive linemen Jake Replogle and Evan Panfil. But there weren't enough bright spots to overcome inconsistent play, Burke said. "We have a very, very slim margin of error right now with this team," Burke said in an opening statement. "When you have young kids playing — and what I mean by young is when you have 18- and 19-year-olds compet- ing against 21- and 22-year-olds — you're liable to get some inconsistent performance, particularly when ad- versity strikes. Whether it be the Michigan State game, the Northwestern game, the Iowa game, the Wisconsin game, we had opportunities to make statement plays and we didn't do it. It's our jobs, all of us, to lead them through the process of dealing with and actually getting to the point where they embrace adversity, recognizing when they're in an adverse situation, that's when they have a chance to win, not just compete. Obviously, we're not there. But as young players begin to develop physi- cally and mentally over the next year, you have the op- portunity to go forward." An excerpt from the 40-minute session in early De- cember with Purdue's athletic director: Q: How much did Hazell's buyout factor into the decision of him coming back? Burke: "Zero. Z-E-R-O." Q: What specific signs of progress did you see this season? Burke: "We didn't see enough progress, obviously, so I'm not going to sit here and give you a handful of exam- ples and create an image that everything is rosy. That's not what you've got. … I want to see the ability of these kids to take a step a year from now and then, at the same time, see the kids we have not seen yet that have been redshirted this year, how they perform as they come in. There's clearly more talent. But having more talent and playing as a team, when you've got to get 11 guys per- forming at a high level, we have a very small, slim mar- gin of error. It shows up in crunch time. You don't get the first down. You play behind the sticks. You can't get off the field on third downs. You can't make kicks. Those were all generally in under-pressure situations, so that tells me we're not playing as well under pressure as we need to and we're not relishing that pressure. "The irony is we probably play better on the road than we do at home. At the end of the day, we've got to help these kids get over the hump. That's our job to do that. They certainly showed periods of progress, they were down 20-0 at Iowa and we had a chance there to score to tie it up, we didn't do it. You've got Northwestern tied and you let the quarterback get out for a 14-yard run on third-and-14. You just can't have those. We're down to counting the number of plays in a game, and people are tired of it. I'm sure the players are tired of it, coaches are tired of it … but that's where we are." Q: Does Hazell need a contract extension for re- cruiting? Burke: "I don't think so. My tenure, if people had anything to say about me when they were writing my No 'Reset' For Football Burke says program needs to get older, better handle adversity Q&A