Kenny Thompson

In hindsight, first-year coach Barry Odom signing 82 new players to a Purdue football roster decimated by the transfer portal was adding quantity over quality. The record says 2-10 but there was some talent among the newcomers as indicated by five selections to All-Big Ten teams. Let’s rank some of these transfers by their play…

Let’s catch up on some news from the past few weeks while pushing the delete button on my DVR to remove the Old Oaken Bucket game from memory. … Yes, Big Ten, Matt Painter has another 7-footer coming to your basketball court in 2026-27. Sinan Huan, a 7-foot, 225-pound center from Beijing, is attending Georgetown…

The 100th Old Oaken Bucket game will likely be a memorable one for the second-ranked Indiana Hoosiers, who could wrap up an undefeated regular season with a victory Friday night at Ross-Ade Stadium. Like this season’s edition, often the Old Oaken Bucket game has been a one-sided rivalry with one school enduring a tough season.…

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…