Big Ten media day coverage: Video | Podcast | Notebook | Transcript

CHICAGO — Friday morning and afternoon, Purdue’s delegation to this decreasingly relevant Big Ten media day event, an occasion that used to mark the first word of the college football season and now is just more of many, since the 24-hour news cycle is also a 365-day news cycle, had much to discuss, because this season is different.

Yeah, last year was about the goal of building on, and handling, success, a theme that played out painfully for Purdue during an 0-3 start, not that the results were exclusively tied to context, but they did conveniently dovetail.

But this year is different for the Boilermakers, owner of the greatest 13-13 record in college football the past two seasons. Again, context, and at most places who are where Purdue aspires to be, 13-13 would put the coach in hot water. At Purdue, it gets him a market-outlier contract, one that the coach earned and situational demand mandated, but a market-outlier nonetheless, because Purdue is close to something and couldn’t afford, literally and figuratively, to let go of the rope now.

Now should be that something, the moment where 12-13 should be formalized as just the first few rungs on the ladder, the season where expectations should change, or rather, exist, not because Jeff Brohm is making more money — he’s the same coach he was before the new contract that came from the Louisville Vacancy Crisis — but because his team should be good.