Week 1 of the college football season kicks off Thursday night, with a slate of 12 games that features just one ranked team: No. 21 UCF vs. UConn at 7 p.m. ET. But an hour after that American Athletic Conference start, one of the most fun turnaround teams of 2017 will commence its 2018 season, and as Purdue enters the second year of coach Jeff Brohm’s tenure, it’s hoping to build a strong start into something more sustainable.
The Boilermakers fired their previous coach, Darrell Hazell, in 2016 in the middle of an eventual 3–9 campaign. At that point, Purdue hadn’t finished with a winning record since 2011, when Danny Hope’s team went 7–6 and won the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl.