If you’re looking for a leader in the clubhouse in the “best new hire” sweepstakes, go ahead and pencil Purdue in and make sure you press hard on the lead.
According to folks like well-connected and highly respected local sportswriter Bob Kravitz, the Boilers are set to name the Western Michigan coach as the head football coach sooner rather than later.
This is not etched in stone, but I'm hearing that PJ Fleck will soon be named as Purdue's next football coach.
— Bob Kravitz (@bkravitz) November 26, 2016
A local Indy reporter also confirmed the hire, though Western Michigan is claiming they have no idea about any of this. Which is what Houston said a few days ago. Which is what you do when you don’t feel like dealing with it because it’s simply not time, yet.
PJ Fleck to Purdue Rumors: Second Source Steps Forward @SBNationCFB #RowTheBoatToWestLafayette https://t.co/BTA6Eo2AAz
— Hammer & Rails (@HammerAndRails) November 27, 2016
When you’re looking at rumors an innuendo, your best bet is to go local, because those folks know more than the national guys when and if they have it.
And if so, this is a massive hire for the Boilermakers, and Fleck will need to come up with some other catch phrase, because there are no boats to row in West Lafayette.
Fleck is thee mid major hot commodity this year after turning around what was a certifiable grease fire at Western Michigan when he took over the program. His first year, the Broncos scuffled to a miserable 1-11 season.
After that, it was all uphill from there, and quickly. They would go 8-5 the following season, the largest turnaround in college football that season, and then followed up that season with another 8-5 tilt before going 12-0 this year, where they currently are going into the MAC title game.
Fleck also has been a master marketer, no small feat in today’s college football, with his now popularized “Row the Boat” theme to describe the uprising of WMU. You can go a lot of ways with schticks like this, but it appears to have worked. Fleck has made “Row the Boat” a national brand that anyone with a passing pulse on college football knows about.
Which means they know about Western Michigan. Which is no small feat.
Fleck’s ties to the Midwest would help Purdue as well, and Fleck would be the only mid major coach the Boilers should even consider after seeing previously successful coaches Danny Hope (Eastern Kentucky) and Darrell Hazell (Kent State) falter in West Lafayette in spite of success in their previous stops.
His ties include working under current North Carolina State head coach Dave Doeren at Northern Illinois (where he played) and also has experience working for one Jim Tressel.
As good as Fleck is, and as good of a job as Purdue is (improving facilities, win-able division annually, in-state struggles by rivals), the potential cupboard would be bare. Hazell hasn’t been able to keep many of his recruits, and Hope left a tattered group to begin with.
But make no mistake, Fleck has done this before, and he’s done it in a more difficult place. It’s hard to imagine Purdue coming up with a more home run hire than P.J. Fleck. In fact, it went over the fence and hasn’t landed, yet.
