RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesSo now Tommy McClelland wants everyone to know he screwed up. Shouldn’t have said it , now regrets it.
Says he shouldn’t have insulted rival Indiana when introduced as Purdue’s new athletic director .
To this I say: He should've been fired for walking it back.
What are we doing, Purdue? You’re dying on the vine in the most competitive conference in college football, and your athletic director claws back a jab at bitter rival Indiana said during his introductory news conference. If that's not bad enough, he does it with a weak statement during the "Pat McAfee Show" on ESPN.
Which is sort of like going to the frat house party, walking up to the Texas Hold ‘Em table, and doing your best Kent Dorfman .
“You guys playing cards?”
The last thing the world remembers about Purdue football is the late, great Joe Tiller — a man’s man if there ever was one — and big man on campus quarterback Drew Brees, who was just inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame .
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Yeah, it’s been that long. That painful. That forgettable.
So McClelland shows up from Rice, where he impressively resuscitated a program on life support. He also spent time as deputy athletic director at Vanderbilt, which has forever been in the shadow of all things SEC football — but has begun to climb out with the hiring of football coach Clark Lea and athletic director Candice Storey Lee.
Lee arrived in 2020, and hired McClelland as her top lieutenant. She also hired Lea, whose first statement when hired was we can win a national title at Vanderbilt.
And he didn’t back off and apologize to Alabama and Georgia and LSU and every other blue blood in the conference. He just went to work to make it happen, and whaddya know, here we are six years later and Vanderbilt is a problem for the SEC.
Saying Vanderbilt, the longtime tomato can of the SEC, can win the national title — even though it hasn’t won an SEC title as a charter member of the conference formed in 1932 — is the Titanic of statements compared to McClelland’s S.S. Minnow.
So yeah, Lea speaking national title relevance into existence isn’t remotely close to McClelland’s heat of the moment, get everyone fired up statement — " If you don't want to win championships, go to Indiana " — even with the Hoosiers just completing the greatest turnaround in sports history by actually winning the national title.
But I’m guessing Indiana coach Curt Cignetti got a kick out of it, anyway. Not because the Hoosiers have beaten the bejeezus out of Purdue in his two seasons, but because McClelland had the stones to say it.
Cignetti was asked Monday if he had any response to McClelland's comment.
“Not really,” Cignetti said .
Just like Cignetti had the temerity to proclaim, “Google me, I win” — when asked if he thought he could win at Indiana, then the armpit of college football and the losingest program ever.
Then Cig went out and won 27 of 29 games, and the Big One.
Imagine Jim Tressel walking on the court at Ohio State and declaring his football team will make fans proud when they next play Michigan — and then walking it back a day later. That’d go over about like you think it would in the great state of Ohio, Mr. Dorfman.
This is college football, not tiddlywinks. And when you throw rivalries into the equation, it’s damn near close to war.
Imagine new UCLA coach Bob Chesney apologizing for saying the Bruins aren’t backing down from anyone, much less USC. Or new Ole Miss coach Pete Golding apologizing for saying the people of Oxford wouldn’t "piss on" former coach Lane Kiffin right now.
It wasn’t that long ago that former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh proclaimed the Wolverines would beat Ohio State, or die trying. We sure as all get-out didn’t see Harbs claw it back a day later.
Imagine being a student-athlete at Purdue, McClelland makes his introductory news conference statement and you're pumped. Let's go, baby. You better believe it, we comin’.
Then your leader, the man at the tip of the spear, shows up on McAfee — whose horn blows all over the planet — with tail between legs, hat in hand.
“I made an offhand, unscripted comment about an in-state rival that didn't land well,” McClelland told McAfee. “I knew it the second it left my mouth.”
So did everyone at Purdue. The second time around.
You guys playing cards?
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB . Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville .
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New Purdue AD had the guts to rip Indiana. Then he folded | Opinion
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