Notre Dame vs. Purdue: Big Loss Will Leave Purdue With Questions to Answer

Most of the talk ahead of the Notre Dame-Purdue matchup set for Saturday night has been Fighting Irish-centric.

There are those, myself included, that think that the Irish will get an inspiring win that will keep their hot streak alive. Others feel that their recent success has been fool's gold and that they will be exposed against a team they should easily handle.

I'm not so sure that the more interesting topics don't center around where the Purdue Boilermakers program will go from here if they are blown off the field on Saturday night, which I think they will be.

In a span of just five or six years, Purdue has gone from a solid seven- or eight-win Big Ten program to a fringe bowl team to a bottom-feeder in the conference.

The dip in their talent level is obvious to spot. The Boilermakers used to have quarterbacks like Kyle Orton and Drew Brees throwing the ball for them. Now, they would be content just to have a quarterback stake his claim to the starting job from the first week of the season on.

Danny Hope, who took over for the legendary Joe Tiller in 2009, has gotten a pass because the talent drop began when Tiller was still in charge, but his seat has to be getting warm.

It will be hard for Purdue to let go of the coach that was hand-picked by Tiller himself, but it might be the move they have to make.

As a program, they have been a Big Ten doormat since Hope took over in 2009 and 2011 looks to be the toughest season yet. They already have a loss to Rice on their schedule and they barely escaped with a win against Middle Tennessee State. Only Minnesota looks like a likely win among the remaining games on the slate.

After Saturday, Purdue will have a ton of questions to answer about the direction of their program. If Hope is the man to lead them back to where they once were, they need to get it going soon.

If Hope isn't that guy, they need to begin thinking about who that guy might be.