Living in West Lafayette and working at Purdue I can tell you the mood has suddenly shifted from "Brohm isn't going anywhere!" to "Oh S*&t!" real quick. Half of Brohm's staff are also Louisville alums. My neighbor is Reggie Johnson, D-line coach for Purdue and played D-tackle at Louisville. He and another coach have daughters enrolled at Louisville right now.
Purdue fans can talk about how great of a job Purdue is. My neighbors even said to me a couple weeks ago,"Why would he leave when he has auto-wins in Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska in the division?" The truth is that while Purdue did upgrade football facilities for the first time in forever (and they do look sharp), finally got lights on their stadium for primetime games, and the academics are top notch but these factors do not overcome the city of West Lafayette and Lafayette. WL is very much a college town bubble but Lafayette is as rust-belt as it gets with smoke stacks spewing into the sky. There is very little to do here, Indy is an hour away.
The mentality that the Big 10 West is easier to win that having Clemson in your division at Louisville is also a fallacy. Coaches like Brohm don’t get where they are by shying away from challenges and taking the easy way out.
Also, they can't sell out games. Purdue athletic department was advertising tickets still available for the Ohio St game 3 days prior for $45. A commercial yesterday went across the screen for this weekends Wisconsin game, $15 tickets. The stadium isn't that big.
Purdue fans don't quite understand that their cute little football upstarts hold nothing to the big dogs. Louisville may be a mess but they have better everything but academics IMO. And Brohm has already pulled in the top WR in Kentucky from Louisville. He also another top WR from Indy that is undecided. Wandale may be back in play for him at L-ville as well. I think he would get a quick infusion of talent at WR where he needs it to be successful.
