There's nothing wrong with a little trash talking between rivals, but new Purdue athletic director Tommy McClelland is already backpedaling after directing a dig at Indiana during his introductory press conference on Thursday.
McClelland, who was just hired from Rice, decided to go off-script at the podium. That proved to be a mistake as he fired a poorly-aimed shot at the Hoosiers.
"Every recruit and every student-athlete will hear this message repeatedly," McClelland said. "We are here to win championships. If you don't want to win championships, go to Indiana. Purdue may not be the place for you."
That's an ill-advised statement to make just months after Indiana went undefeated and won its first national championship in football. It's even bolder when you consider the fact that, in the two years since Curt Cignetti took over in Bloomington, the Hoosiers are 2-0 against the Boilermakers with a combined score of 121-3.
McClelland just gave Cignetti and the Hoosiers, who don't need any extra incentive to keep the pedal to the floor, plenty of motivation to run that score up even more this fall.
It didn't take long for McClelland to realize what he'd done, and he owned up to his mistake on Friday's edition of "The Pat McAfee Show."
"I'm having a great day yesterday, giving our vision and sharing what we're going to do here at Purdue," McClelland said. "... I made an offhand, unscripted comment about an in-state rival that didn't land well. I knew it the second it left my mouth."
McClelland lamented the fact that his comment overshadowed an otherwise exciting day, but he maintained his goal of building championship programs in West Lafayette.
"We're going to build programs here that are better at winning championships than I am at one-liners," McClelland said.
McClelland will continue to take heat for his remarks, but it will only be a good thing for college athletics in Indiana if he can deliver on his promise to build championship-caliber teams at Purdue. That would certainly make late November a lot more interesting than it has been over the last couple of years for the Boilermakers, who have a combined 7-29 record over the past three seasons. That includes a 3-24 mark in Big Ten play, including going 0-9 in league play in Barry Odom's first year on the job.
