Purdue’s athletic department began a new era this week, with Tommy McClelland introduced as the school’s new athletic director. McClelland was previously the AD at Rice and has previous stops at McNeese State and Louisiana Tech, as well as a stint as deputy AD at Vanderbilt on his resume.
While McClelland brings plenty of experience to his new gig, he made quite an odd first impression at his introductory press conference on Thursday when he took a shot at in-state rival Indiana.
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“Every recruit, every current student-athlete will hear this message repeatedly — we are here to win championships,” McClelland said. “If you don’t want to win championships, go to Indiana.”
The first part of that statement — the part about being here to win championships — that’s a good message! But the second half of that message would have landed a lot better a few years ago, when Indiana was also stuck in the sporting doldrums. Instead, McClelland invoked a rival school coming off of arguably the most successful and most unexpected season in the history of college football, with the Hoosiers running an undefeated 16–0 to a championship win this past winter.
Heading into the new collegiate sporting season, Purdue is in an interesting spot. Men’s basketball coach Matt Painter has led his team to contend for titles both in the Big Ten and nationally. Meanwhile, the school’s football team hasn’t won a conference game since 2023, when a 35–31 win over Indiana prompted the firing of the Hoosiers’ then-coach Tom Allen and the eventual hiring of Curt Cignetti.
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McClelland’s comments were rather bizarre given Indiana’s recent championship success. Maybe he was trying to have his own Cignetti moment — the Hoosiers coach made a splash before he ever coached a game at Indiana with bold statements about his ability to win and yelling to basketball fans, “Purdue sucks!” while being introduced. If it worked out for Cignetti, maybe this will work out for McClelland too.
Unfortunately, talking smack is the easy part of the equation. Now the Boilermakers need to win a championship, which they haven’t done since taking the women’s team golf title in 2010.
The men’s basketball side feels like the most likely champion, but maybe Purdue can write its own epic college football story, as Indiana did last year. The Boilermakers travel to Indiana to take on the Hoosiers on Thanksgiving weekend in their final game of the regular season. You can bet that Cignetti will be using McClelland’s comments as bulletin board material.
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