Kenny Thompson

Increasingly it looks like Purdue’s athletic department was wise to pay Ryan Walters $9.5 million to go away last November with a 5-19 record. I’m not talking about results on the field, where quarterback Ryan Browne’s poor decision making is a reason the Boilermakers are 2-6 instead of 4-4. So far, 10 college football coaches…

Matt Painter’s Purdue basketball program figures prominently in CBSSports.com Candid Coaches series put together by Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish. Coaches were granted anonymity by CBS, whose survey began with “who will be the best team in 2025-26?” Purdue received 32 percent of the vote to edge Houston (28 percent). The next closest schools were…

It’s a season of great expectations for the Purdue men’s basketball team, starting with yet another first for Matt Painter’s program. Until Monday’s release of the preseason Associated Press Top 25 college basketball poll, no Purdue team had ever began the season ranked No. 1. The Boilermakers earned 35 of 61 first-place votes to edge…

After back-to-back 9-win seasons and coming off an upset of fourth-ranked Kansas State in the Alamo Bowl, Joe Tiller and his coaching staff thought it was time the Purdue football program reached for the stars: the four- and five-star recruits who could lift the Boilermakers into national prominence. Tiller learned a hard lesson with the…

Purdue honored Drew Brees and many of his 2000 Big Ten Championship teammates a few weeks ago to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Boilermakers’ journey to their second Rose Bowl appearance. Unless he was overlooked in the media reports leading up to the reunion, former head coach Jim Colletto should have been invited to…

This week we wrap up the best Boilermaker football players by number series with  a College Football Hall of Fame guard and a Touchdown Twin. 91 Blaine Smith While not recognized as a member of Purdue’s Den of Defensive Ends, Smith was a first-team All-Big Ten selection in 1975 and 1976. 92 Craig Terrill One…

Before there was such a thing as the “Den of Defensive Ends” at Purdue, one of their future members was a 6-foot-7 giant who was so fleet of foot that he also was a favorite target of quarterback Len Dawson in the mid-1950s. Two other Den of Defensive End members are included in this week’s…

Perhaps the strangest NFL championship game, pre-Super Bowl era, involved the Chicago Bears winning the title in 1932 on an indoor 60-yard field that was littered with circus “leftovers.” A Purdue All-American center never forgot that game until the day he died at age 92. He’s among this week’s edition of best Boilermakers by number…

A member of the Buffalo Bills’ “Electric Company” is among a group of talented offensive linemen in this week’s countdown of the best Boilermakers by number. Crashing this list of offensive linemen is arguably the best defensive tackle in school history and a Sports Illustrated Silver Anniversary team member. 61 Nick Hardwick Hardwick didn’t play…

As tempting as it may be for fans to predict future success or failure for a Purdue football head coach after his first game, history says your results may vary. Barry Odom makes his debut Saturday in Ross-Ade Stadium against Ball State, and the Boilermakers are 18 and a half-point favorites. As Purdue fans discovered…