Purdue interim head coach Brian Brohm walks to the sideline after a timeout during the first half of the Citrus Bowl on Monday.
John Raoux | Associated Press
One has to hand it to the Citrus Bowl selection committee for having the foresight to pair apples vs. oranges.
LSU laying a heaping helping of humiliation on Purdue earlier this week, while not entirely unexpected given the obvious discrepancies in talent and depth, was frustrating nonetheless.
Mainly, the 63-7 beatdown in sunny Orlando brought to the surface everything that’s wrong with the current bowl structure, now the ultimate in oversaturation with 43 games scattered across 24 days.
Let’s begin with former Boilermakers coach Jeff Brohm, who essentially formed his own Brohm-shaped vapor trail in his haste to get home to Louisville.
While I respect Brohm for lifting the program from the abyss that was the Darrell Hazell era, he shouldn’t be allowed to win another game, at his alma mater or some other destination where he can employ his brothers, for the position he left Purdue in.
Brohm bolted across the Ohio River, took key assistant coaches with him, and just like that, the Boilers were in an awkward transitional phase that, as you may have witnessed for a quarter or two, did not go well.
The decision by athletic director Mike Bobinski to allow eventual Louisville assistants Brian Brohm and Mark Hagen to remain with the Boilermakers through bowl season was the wrong one.
I’m sure their hearts were really in it.
Brian Brohm and Hagen should have been with their new team, all things gold and black a fading memory. Let Purdue people coach Purdue players, starting with new head coach Ryan Walters and filling assistant roles with former players such as Drew Brees, Rosevelt Colvin, etc., if need be.
Hey, they couldn’t have fared any worse.
The transfer portal and opt-out option for NFL hopefuls left the cupboard barren, with no quarterback Aidan O’Connell, tight end Payne Durham and second team All-American wide receiver Charlie Jones. Purdue’s two best defensive players, linebacker Jalen Graham and cornerback Corey Trice, also deemed themselves unavailable.
LSU also had its share of (legitimate in this case) NFL prospects and transfers. The Boilers still might have been far more competitive had O’Connell and friends taken part, but the Tigers’ roster is so impressively deep with four- and five star talent that it didn’t matter.
So where do we go from here?
Bowl season will be capped with a final four for one more year before we switch to a 12-team playoff format in 2024-25.
In the meantime, those in charge of the onslaught of postseason college football games should develop a formula that seeds qualifying teams based on coaching departures, transfers, injuries and opt-outs.
Give coaches and players a deadline to declare they won’t be part of the upcoming bowl season. Then factor what the missing players contributed to their team’s overall statistical picture and seed accordingly.
Slot teams into bowl games with No. 5 playing No. 6, all the way down to No. 85 squaring off against No. 86, with conference affiliation no longer playing a role the way it has in years past.
If that means Purdue plummeting from a would-be Citrus Bowl appearance to, say, the Lending Tree Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, to face a Rice or Southern Mississippi, so be it.
A least the game would be — or should be — competitive.
Mike Beas is a sportswriter for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].
