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First off, this is not meant to be alarmist. I fully believe Jeff Brohm will be coaching Purdue not only in its bowl game in a few weeks, but on August 30, 2018 when Purdue begins next season at home against Northwestern. The fact of the matter is that he is a hot commodity on the coaching market. He got tangible results in year one without a ton of talent. Getting to a bowl game was considered impossible this year, but not only did he do it, but Purdue was a couple of plays away from being 8-4 or better.
So yes, other teams are looking at him. We published a report last night that Tennessee has conteacted him, and now Arkansas may be in on it after firing Bret Bielema. How do we know?
IT’S FLIGHT AWARE SEASON!!!!!
That’s right, Flight Aware season, where we track flights into and out of West Lafayette’s Purdue airport and begin to speculate wildly. Last year we tracked a flight from Kalamazoo to West Lafayette for P.J. Fleck and from Baton Rouge to West Lafayette for Les Miles. This year we don’t have to track the Purdue jet to wildly speculate. Schools may come to us to court Brohm. So what do we have?
This was a flight from Knoxville, Tennessee to West Lafayette yesterday morning. It arrived just before 11:00, which is when the height of the Greg Schiano fracas was blowing up. It left about an hour later and went to Henderson, Kentucky just south of Evansville about an hour later before continuing on to Miami.
Analysis: Brohm told Tennessee to walk and now they are after Mark Richt, all while the Schiano thing was a smoke screeen.
This flight left Louisville yesterday just after 3pm and landed at around 4:30. It stayed for about an hour and a half and flew back to Louisville around 6:15pm. But Louisville isn’t open? WE MAY BE WRONG! Bobby Petrino has long been connected to Tennessee rumors, his buyout is now lower since Louisville fired its AD. This also happened as everything was falling apart in Knoxville, so Louisville is playing 13 dimension chess.
Analysis: Petrino to Tennessee and Brohm gets the call home to Louisville. BOOK IT!
Just the second flight to arrive this morning in West Lafayette, it came in from Terre Haute. Random training flight, or is Indiana State taking a big swing after a winless season 1 of Curt Mallory?
Analysis: THE TREES WERE ONE OF THE FEW TEAMS TO LOSE TO TENNESSEE THIS YEAR! Clearly those in Knoxville are getting clever now.
Why would a flight be headed from Fayetteville, Arkansas (home of the Razorbacks) allt he way to West Lafayette on a Monday afternoon? It departed Fayetteville at 4:50pm Central Time and landed at 7:08pm Eastern Time. It was only on the ground for 28 minutes before taking off for Chicago.
Analysis: PIG SOOOOOOOOUIE!! Arkansas talked him into it in 28 minutes on the tarmac and headed to Chicago to announce the news on BTN live!
This flight took off from Louisville at 6:21pm tonight and landed 6:57pm. This was just 11 minutes before the Fayetteville flight arrived. The World Atlantic flight is still on the ground as of right now.
Analysis: BIDDING WAR ON THE TARMAC! Louisville and Arkansas got into it on the tarmac and agreed to send Bobby Petrino back to Arkansas with a volleyball player of his choice. They are now hammer out the deal to bring Brohm home.
Multiple Flights Taking off and Landing at Purdue Airport on Circle Flights
Either they are training flights for Purdue aviation, or we are constantly keeping Brohm in the air like the President during a crisis. They can’t negotiate with him if he isn’t on the ground. Also, Markell Jones is in the aviation school, so after being named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week he is doing extra work to keep his coach here by flying him all day.
Take that, suitors!