Purdue desperately needs win vs. Penn State
By CLIFF BRUNT
ISL Editor
Purdue (3-5, 0-4 Big Ten) is in danger of having its bowl hopes put on life support heading into Saturday’s home game against Penn State. The Boilermakers need to win three of their final four games to become bowl eligible, and if the Boilers lose this one, they will then hit the road for games against Iowa and Illinois — winnable games, but road games nonetheless.
Meanwhile, athletic director Morgan Burke has cranked up the heat on coach Danny Hope. He put out a statement this week saying that the team’s performance has stopped the team from reaching its goals. In my past conversations with Burke, he had always been positive about the progress the program was making. Consider the following comments he gave me in June:Those who really know football and see how his roster’s been built and the way these kids have played – I know everybody would like the slope to be straight up in terms of won-loss record. But for the second year, when we had all those injuries, we would have been in a bowl game a year ago as well as this past year. Getting back to postseason, that was the first step. We’re not going to beat on our chest because we got into postseason, but you’ve got to do that (reach a bowl). That’s part of building that experience in the roster. He’s got a good squad and we’re excited about it.Now, consider what he said this week:
Everyone around our football program has high expectations for the 2012 season. We have worked very hard over the past four years to improve our personnel, facilities and every phase of our program, which is evident. Our student-athletes, alumni, fans, coaching staff and administration all expect to see the program move forward and take a step up the postseason ladder. Currently, our performance has kept us from reaching our goals. But we have a third of the season left to play, and our focus is to achieve that consistency over the remaining four games. We need to press forward, converting potential into results and having fun playing Boilermaker football.
Clearly, though he’s trying to be positive, the tone of Burke’s statement was a bit different than what he told me on the golf course. Statements like the one above don’t just come out for nothing.
Hope will start Robert Marve at quarterback on Saturday. We’ll see if he provides the spark needed to turn things around for Hope and the program.
Here is the link to my Penn State-Purdue preview for The Associated Press.
