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.

Purdue's going to go through a good deal of hassle to play a football game this weekend against quite possibly the worst program in Division I at the moment, or at least the most troubled.

The Boilermakers will fly halfway across the country to Hartford, to play Connecticut in front of what could be a minute, and perhaps even Purdue-partisan, crowd. Two weeks ago, Connecticut gave up 45 points to Fresno State and scored none; this past weekend, it lost ugly to Holy Cross, which does in fact have a football program.

The other day, Coach Randy Edsall announced his retirement, effective at the end of the season. A day later, he just quit, effective now.

UConn didn't play last season. It opted out of the COVID season, which my sportswriter spider-senses tell me it would not have had the money involved made sense. It does not have an on-campus stadium, and when Holy Cross came to town, the two teams played in East Hartford in front of fewer than 19,000 fans, less than half capacity.

While it was not all that long ago that Connecticut football was alive and kicking during Edsall's first tour of duty in Storrs, those days have long passed, and the current state of this program is such that its Division I status would seem dicey. Programs like this one might be the inevitable collateral damage as Power 5 consolidates power.

This is Purdue's opponent on Saturday, and the most likely scenario is that the Boilermakers essentially flash their Big Ten ID card at the door and that will be that. Hey, wins are wins, and you can only play who's on your schedule. No shame in that.

But that game also might be a last-of-its kind affair for Purdue.