Purdue Athletic Director Search Update

It has been almost three months since the (glorious) news of Morgan Burke's impending retirement was announced. Since then there has not been a lot of news to report. In April the search committee met for the first time and chose a firm to aid them in the search. The school is working with DHR International to identify candidates under the following criteria:

DHR International will seek feedback over the next month from Purdue stakeholders regarding the skill set and criteria they feel are important in the next athletic director, Berghoff. The firm will then develop a job description and compile a list of candidates, he said.

Berghoff hopes to ultimately give Purdue University President Mitch Daniels two or three strong candidates to consider.

That was as of a month ago (April 8). Since then, things have been quiet. No names have surfaced as potential candidates and the school itself has been mum.

If you want to learn more about DHR itself here is their website. This is my favorite part about it on their About page:

Our clients are served on a highly personal and professional basis. Above all, we will not sacrifice our quality, level of service, or commitment to our clients. We stand behind our work with a powerful, but remarkably simple guarantee. Should a candidate leave or be terminated within two years of the completion of the search, we will recruit another candidate for no additional professional service fee. Of course, as great as our guarantee is, it is very seldom used.

It is nice to know that if the new AD doesn't work out within two years Mitch Daniels essentially has a coupon for the new search.

In theory, we have some time, as Burke is here through the end of July 2017. That is 14 months, but even Burke has mentioned "The elephant in the room" that is Purdue football. To this point the hiring of Darrell Hazell has been an unmitigated disaster. Because of this, the critical time frame is 6 months, if not less. Purdue needs to have someone new in place by the end of November in order to make a decision on Hazell, especially if another subpar season happens. As we have seen, the coaching carousel spins quickly as soon as the season ends.

The date of this year's Bucket game is November 26^th. To me, Purdue needs to wrap up this hire by that date. Danny Hope was fired the day after the Bucket game, and the same needs to happen to Hazell if the expected disaster of a season happens. He was hired on December 4^th after Hope was fired on November 25^th. That was a span of 10 days. Do we trust Burke to move that quickly again, or at all knowing that he will be gone 6-7 months later?

I don't think anyone wants Burke to have a hand in hiring a new football coach. As it is, he may have to hire a new baseball coach as Doug Schreiber has just lost it the last four seasons after a Big Ten title, culminating in this year's horrid season. That might be the litmus test here. If Schreiber is fired or forced to resign we might see that Burke still has some teeth. If he is retrained it could be a sign that everything is on hold until a new AD is announced.

So, to sum things up, yes, this is a 600 word "We know nothing" post. The best I can give you is to keep an eye on the Schreiber situation. He is a much more accomplished Purdue coach that has had now four very bad seasons in a row. He doesn't carry the buyout that Hazell does, but if he is let go it could be a telling sign about Hazell's future.