'Starving' Purdue team ready to change perception
CHICAGO - For years, the billboard ruled high above I-65 between Indianapolis and West Lafayette.
It boldly proclaimed: “The train is coming.”
It meant Purdue’s football team was ready to rise, was going to start winning again, consistently, with new coach Darrell Hazell.
Soon, the billboard Hazell drove past started to bother him. At some point, he thought, the train has to actually arrive.
But along the interstate wasn’t the only place that message was staring Hazell down. It spanned two flights in the stairwell, plastered to the wall, on the way to Hazell’s office in Mollenkopf.
The billboard eventually was replaced. The super-sized wall decal was adjusted.
By Hazell.
“I went out and bought this sticker and placed it over ‘The train is coming’ (to change) to ‘The train is here.’ So I want the guys to see that all the time,” Hazell said Monday at Big Ten media day at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.
“It’s been three-and-a-half years in the making for us to get to this point. We’re at a great place right now.”
Hazell knows that could be up for debate.
After all, the Boilermakers have won only six times in 36 games during his tenure. They’ve won only two Big Ten games in that span. They’ve won only once on the road. They’ve lost three consecutive games to rival Indiana for the first time since losing four straight from 1944-47.
And yet, Hazell came to Chicago overflowing with optimism.
He wouldn’t put a number on victories for his team this season, but he feels like it is ready to win now. He says there’s something “special” — a word he’s used before — brewing in West Lafayette. He says there’s a “burning in his soul” — and he’s not talking heartburn — about this specific team. He says he doesn’t look at the last three seasons as a funk but as a “growing process.”
“I know we're in a position right now to go out and win some football games,” said Hazell, repeating a refrain from this same time last season. “I really feel like we’re there. I believe that. That’s genuine. That’s not media day rhetoric. I really feel like we have enough good players right now and that they’re starving to be successful, that we can make a run.
“Obviously, we want to have a lot of success on the field. Success to us is winning football games. Our guys are ready to do that. … If (players) start talking about bowl games, I’ll stop that in a heartbeat. To me, that sets a ceiling on our football program. To think that six wins is what we’re thinking about, I would be very disappointed.”
When asked how he’d define success for the season, senior receiver DeAngelo Yancey said one word: “Postseason.”
Anything short of that? “Unacceptable.”
Part of Yancey — or Ja’Whaun Bentley or Jake Replogle, the other Purdue players who attended media day — didn’t want to say that publicly.
He knows — Bentley and Replogle, too — that it sounds unlikely. Yancey knows reality is Purdue hasn’t performed up to expectations and must do better.
“This is the make-or-break year,” Yancey said.
Bentley would rather show it than speak about it. But, in this season-preview-type environment and at this time of year when no games are being played, there’s only one thing he can do.
So Bentley did Monday, not holding back despite knowing how optimism, belief and hope would sound.
“Things have changed. This is not the same team we’ve seen in the past. This is a different unit. This is a turn, I believe, for the better,” he said. “I’m just going to leave that there and show by results.”
The results, of course, are what matter.
And success, truly, is defined one way.
“Winning every game,” Bentley said when asked how he’d define it for Purdue. “Success, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you draw it up, it’s winning. Seeing results. You don’t lose and say, ‘We were successful.’ That’s hard to sell to somebody. Winning is success for us. We’re not going to lower it down by any means and say moral victory-type thing. No. We’re going to show it.”
Replogle certainly didn’t make any guarantees, but he said Purdue has the talent to compete for a West Division title. He knows Iowa is defending that title, and that’s an opponent Purdue gets at home. Same goes for Wisconsin, the other potential front-runner. And Northwestern, too, is at Ross-Ade Stadium this season.
The schedule would seem to line up to give Purdue a chance to grab momentum early — the first two conference games are on the road but against Maryland and Illinois — and, perhaps, control its destiny at home.
“We don’t have a lot of respect around the Big Ten and, frankly, we honestly shouldn’t. We weren’t the team we were supposed to be. But this year, we’re ready to get the respect we deserve,” Replogle said. “We’re capable of getting wins, getting to a bowl game. That’s something that’s in our grasp, and those are goals for our team this year.”
More Big Ten media day coverage: One newcomer out, another work to do ($) | Another camp, another QB 'competition' | Colmery recovering well from brain surgery | McCann to start camp as No. 1 right tackle; media day notebook | Hazell, Replogle, Yancey Video from Big Ten media day
More: Countdown to Camp series
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