Commentary: The Thoughts

The Boiling Point: “The Thoughts” is a new feature offering one writer’s opinion on a variety of topics, most of which are Purdue related.

Welcome to “The Thoughts,” a Wednesday feature at TheBoilingPoints.com which will offer my thoughts on a variety of Purdue and college sports subjects in around a paragraph per topic. Much like most crappy sitcoms, this feature’s future is forever in doubt, so we’ll see if it’s still here next week. As always, your comments are always welcome and I’d love to hear your thoughts on anything included, or even something I didn’t cover. Anyway, without further adieu, “The Thoughts”:

• I’ll start off with the positive: I was real impressed by Purdue’s 59-0 score against Southeastern Western Hemisphere North Galaxy State Saturday. The most impressive part of it to me, however, was the 0 the defense put up there. Sure, only throwing one pass the second half is impressive, but it’s quite a feat to not even give up a field goal, regardless of the level of opponent.
• I was real happy with the timing of Purdue’s bye week when I looked at the schedule in early August, but I’m not sure I understand Hope’s use of it. I thought it’d be great to have an extra week to prepare for Notre Dame. Instead, the players got two extra days off (Monday is always off, then Tuesday and Wednesday are off because of the bye). I like the idea of giving the players time to rest up, but it’s the fourth week of the season. They look like they need practice more than off-days. Although with Purdue’s injury history, maybe it’s not such a bad thing…
• It was reported today that Purdue didn’t sell more than 29,000 season tickets this season for football. Is anybody surprised? Regardless of the economic climate, people around here aren’t going to pay money to see a bad product.
• Purdue had yet another failed idea in putting tickets on students’ ID cards this year instead of handing out printed tickets. Add this to the pile with the “new” Purdue Pete; the Makers, All campaign, and all these other bad ideas that clearly weren’t very well thought out. Why has nobody at this University thought, “Maybe I should gauge interest/check reactions BEFORE implementing an idea here,”? Doesn’t seem that hard to me. Rather, it just seems like some people need to swallow their ego and realize not every idea is great… like charging kids $3 to transfer tickets when they could do it for free/easily before.
• Word is John Calipari was in Gary Harris’ home yesterday. I don’t follow recruiting much, but it sounds like that saga is officially over for Purdue. Hard to not go with the guy that will get you a check, have your tests taken for you and guarantee you make the NBA (if the lockout ever ends).

Reminder: TheBoilingPoints.com’s third podcast of the season will be streaming live tomorrow at 3 p.m. (EST). The call in number to talk is at (626) 213-5634. The half-hour podcast will be available to download shortly after it is recorded for those that can’t tune in at 3 p.m.