The Weekly Word is GoldandBlack.com's weekly, obviously, column covering Purdue football, basketball and recruiting, as well as college sports issues, the true meaning of life, or whatever other topics might come to mind in a given week.

This, for all intents and purposes, is the rubber match.

Purdue's enjoyed two mostly very positive seasons under Jeff Brohm and endured two very difficult, circumstance-riddled ones.

Now, in Year 5, with two potential first-round NFL picks on the roster, considerable experience at quarterback and a roster now virtually exclusively made up of Brohm recruits, this feels like a pivot-point sort of moment. Throw in the fact that fans will be more engaged again, revenue streams up and running and there will be a contractual matter to tend to after this season, and there's really no overstating the importance of this thing swinging back in a positive direction starting Saturday night.