Three Thoughts From The Weekend: Braden Smith, Big Ten and college football issues

GoldandBlack.com’s Three Thoughts from the Weekend column runs every Monday morning, with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting or whatever else comes to mind. In this week’s edition, Braden Smith’s season, Big Ten and college football topics and more.

ON PURDUE’S BRADEN SMITH IN EUROPE

What happens during Purdue’s trip overseas next month really doesn’t matter all that much. It’s not like a top-five team nationally with virtually everyone back is going to get better or worse based off four exhibition games vs. a we’ll-see sort of level of competition. Yeah, I know, there’s no Zach Edey, but that only adds to the futility of it all, because the context changes come the end of September.

But there are some circumstances here that set up well for Purdue. Namely, for Braden Smith.

This is the sophomore point guard’s year to really assert himself, to really take command of things. Purdue will beg and plead with him if it must to look to score more, for one thing. Even if he’s not Purdue’s best player, the more he carries himself like he is, the better.

Being without Edey during the exhibition trip pretty much forces Smith to be that guy. He’s not the only one — Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn come to mind, too — but this is Smith’s team when Edey’s not around. Might wind up that way when Edey is, too, for all we know.

ON BIG TEN MEDIA DAY

This week, the Harvard Law Review — also known as a wide array of Midwest-y sportswriters — will congregate in Indianapolis to annoy Big Ten football coaches and players and fight to the death with Lucas Oil Stadium’s dreadful field-level WiFi. Yep, Big Ten media day, where practicalities such as Internet access and a productive working experience for those in attendance take a back seat to the spectacle of it all. These events were just fine in hotels, but whatever.

Anyway, it’s back in Indy, where it ought to be every year, either there or Chicago. Maybe even Detroit.

Guess what? It won’t be. You can bank on this event moving to Los Angeles at some point after the league’s new Western Front jumps on board. As for making this as inconvenient as possible for 88 percent of the conference, cry more, Maryland.

Not sure if new Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti is of the same mindset as Kevin Warren — Warren’s still woking on moving the Big Ten championship game to Arlington Heights, I think I read — but those Big Ten basketball media day trips to New York and D.C. aligned with those cities hosting the postseason tournaments.

That’ll happen with football, where SoCal will undoubtedly be getting a Big Ten Championship Game at some point probably soon. Will the L.A. media market care? Who knows? Will it matter? Not really.

ON A HOT TOPIC

So there’s been a major change to the college football rulebook; the clock continuing to run following first downs, which will of course fundamentally change the sport, though the change lifts during the final two minutes of each half, where the impact would have been felt the most. Still, shorter games mean fewer possessions which should mean more upsets — relevant to Purdue given that bear of a schedule — and the four-minute offense now becoming the six-minute offense.

The point? To shorten games. The real point of that? As if with everything else, to bow to TV and its ability to cram as much “inventory” (i.e. football) into the schedule as possible. Fine.

This should be a topic of conversation at these media days, whether the game needs to be more concise or not and the best ways to achieve that if so.

Major League Baseball has been pretty successful this year shortening games by way of its new pitch clock, its throw-over restrictions, etc.. The game is different but I don’t think it’s worse.

Guess where new Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti just came from? His opinion on this would be interesting.

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