Game 1 - Eastern Kentucky University

Welcome to yet another (likely frustrating) year of Purdue football! We open the season with the Colonels of Eastern Kentucky, the last FCS opponent we are likely ever to see in Ross-Ade. The Big Ten is going to a 9 game conference schedule and eliminating FCS games for member schools so they can try and pump up strength of schedule for the teams that actually compete to go to the playoffs.

The good news is that the Boilermakers won the lone previous meeting against the Colonels with a 48-6 victory back in 2012. On paper the Boilermakers should have the advantage as EKU returns only 9 starters from last year’s team and has a new coaching staff. However, games are played on the field and not on paper. There are two factors that will make me sweat about this FCS opponent:

1. EKU has a new starting QB by the name of Maty Mauk. That might sound familiar to you because he went 17-5 with 4,373 yds and 42 touchdowns over three years at Missouri. (They play in the SEC east so those are pretty good numbers.

2. The coaching genius of Darrell "stick to the plan" Hazell on our sideline. If I'm looking at Purdue's roster from EKU's perspective I say: "they have superior athletes, but with him coaching I like our chances."

Hopefully I’m wrong and this is the year that the rebuild makes an impact. I would love to see people actually showing up at Ross-Ade for the football and not for the beer garden at some point!

Regarding this year’s tailgating we will be permanently moved back to the W lot. We spent two seasons up on the golf course but with the redesign of the south course they are limiting parking and have banned ambulances up there. Since the amount of parking is going to vary from week to week depending on the ground conditions I preferred to be in a lot that gave us a consistent meeting point.

As a refresher the W lot is the space just south of Slater Center. There is a paved lot but there also appears to be more grass parking this year, we’ll have to let everyone know where we will be (grass or asphalt) after the first game.

This week will be a smaller group and a lighter tailgate than normal. Paula and I are leaving directly from the parking lot to head back to Chicago to catch a flight so there will be no planned post game tailgate.

Our menu this week will pay tribute to the greatest of Kentucky exports, Kentucky Fried Chicken. (I know some will argue that bourbon is their greatest export but we all know my bourbon position.) We have found a recipe that is supposed to be the original 11 herbs and spices used in KFC, so we’ll prepare some for us and will be the judge of the accuracy. We’ll also have our usual assortment of sides and beverages.

Saturday September 3, 2016
8:15 Depart SCTC Lodge
8:45 Tailgate set up
10:00 Food Served
11:30 Depart for Stadium
12:00 Kickoff

As stated above Paula and I will be departing directly from the game so I would appreciate everyone's assistance in cleaning up and breaking down before the game.