I want to like Darrell Hazell. I want him to succeed. I thought firing Danny Hope was the right move because Purdue was stagnant at best and slowly being destroyed from the inside at worst. I support Morgan Burke because I believe he often has his hands tied behind his back with what he can do with his department. The Purdue fanbase isn't exactly known for throwing money at problems. The whole University is run from a very conservative place financially. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. This is a business after all. I find myself questioning each and every one of those thoughts after today's debacle.
It doesn't even really matter what the final score was does it? Well, I guess in one sense it does. Coming into today's game Illinois had the worst scoring offense in the B1G. In their first four conference games they scored a total of 47 points. That's an average of just under 12 points per game in conference play. Just as a reminder Purdue scored 55 points against Nebraska alone. Yes, I know it's one game that saw Nebraska turn it over five times. My point is that there's no reason that Illinois should have been able to score 48 points against the Boilermakers today. Absolutely no excuse. Want another stat that will blow your mind? Through their first four conference games Illinois managed to gain just 269 rushing yards. Against Purdue today they gained 383 rushing yards. That's mind-blowingly bad.
I don't know what this team can do, if anything, to turn the season around. There's really no chance of saving the season at this point. The remaining three games are all going to be Purdue getting romped by teams that are clearly better than them. Even IU has shown improvement over the entirety of the Kevin Wilson era. They will be able to score, score, and score against this Purdue team and I honestly don't think Purdue will be able to keep up at all even against that IU defense.
This program has become a joke. This program has become a laughingstock. Shame on me for taking a look at that Nebraska game and believing that Purdue had actually made progress. Shame on me for believing in my team. Shame on me for hoping again and shame on me for wasting each and every Saturday with this team.
As a fan there's nothing we can do. We are masochists. We return to the TV or, heaven forbid, to the stadium each and every Saturday to watch our favorite team get run all over by everyone. We come back week after week hoping that the coaching staff will learn, hoping that the coaching staff will play a complete game, or hell even hoping that maybe someone on the coaching staff will be fired. We keep coming back and nothing happens. No more. I honestly have no more to give to this team. I have no effort to put in. I have no more f's to give as the kids say. I'm fresh out. Purdue football will no longer get money from me via tickets or donations. They've lost me. I don't know what needs to be done but I know something needs to be done. Right now Morgan Burke is the captain of the Titanic and is simply watching what happens after it hit the iceberg. He doesn't seem to have a plan other than letting things play out. Right now that's just not enough. Something must be done and it must be done soon. Purdue football is dying. Today was yet another possibly fatal blow.