THE HATER'S TRAVEL GUIDE: WEST LAFAYETTE

Note: Our friends at Hammer and Rails are probably not serial murderers who write good things about a miserably depressing school. You should check them out! Everything that follows is true and based on facts.

Ah, Purdue University. Alumni love to tell you about the national brand they've built with their excellent academics and sports teams that definitely play sports, with points and everything. "National" meaning, of course, anyone with a handful of miles of the I-65 corridor between Indianapolis and the dystopian hellscape of miserable burger "restaurants" and dilapidated brick buildings called West Lafayette. Mention Purdue outside of that particular segment of America and you'll get this reaction:

"What is a Purdue?"

Indeed.

WHAT IS A PURDUE?

Purdue was founded by JOHN PURDUE, a notable failure of a businessman and politician. But investing in businesses despite their obvious inability to succeed along with running for office despite near-certain defeat, ol' John wasn't satisfied. What is a man without his legacy? How could he ensure that his tradition of failure would continue on for generations when he was not married and lacked any heirs to his throne (of failure)?

And, thus, the world's first failure factory was created, and it carries his namesake TO THIS DAY. Welcome to Purdue University, home of the-

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Any famous people from Purdue?

Neil Armstrong, famous for helping fake the moon landing went there, and you probably didn't know that unless you talked to a Purdue student / graduate for longer than six seconds.

They also produced one of the most legendary basketball coaches of all time, as John Wooden played for their basketball team back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Purdue, apparently, decided it wasn't a very good idea to have him return to his alma mater as a coach, but they secured another former player to lead their team to greatness and

Oh.

VISITING WEST LAFAYETTE

Directions:

Get on I-65 North and drive until the temperature is below 50 and the rain is falling in heavy sheets. YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION.

Food:

Right after Stock Purdue Graduate has finished bragging about Neil Armstrong and trumpeting Robbie Hummel's greatness, they'll tell you their final lie: that a restaurant called "Triple XXX" is good. This restaurant claims to be a "burger joint" that, in 2014, does not accept credit cards. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about this glorified vending machine, then I'll go deeper. I went to this e. coli shack twice in my life and I'll tell you about both experiences:

• The first time, we arrived a little after 11 AM on a Saturday. The wait was 65 minutes and we were told we had to stand outside. It was 33 degrees. I offered up to, instead, go to this new place I had heard of called "literally anywhere but here" and we did that. It was awesome.
• The next time, the wait was a PALTRY 30 minutes and it was nicer outside so we stuck it out. There were four of us and the staff just couldn't work out a way for us to sit anywhere close to one another. So I elbowed myself between two strangers, and within seconds an employee asked me "Do you want anything?" which is, to date, the funniest way I've been invited to order something in a restaurant. I just stood outside for 30 minutes for the right to sit alone in this bandbox, but, no, I'm good. The burger was a half-step above what gets cranked out at McDonald's in 90 seconds, except I waited 25 minutes for it. I paid cash, as demanded, but I had a feeling if I offered beaver pelts or a nice wooden chair, it would have been accepted.

THE FOOTBALL TEAM

They're bad. And pretty much devoid of hope of getting better.

Lemme pull a quote from the game preview real quick:

I can't imagine the hopelessness of being a Purdue fan, I really really can't. You have an AD and a President who have straight up said, multiple times, that they do not care about being competitive in high-major athletics and their actions back up those words as they refuse to spend any large amounts of money on their athletics programs. For the love of God, this is a program that WENT TO A ROSE BOWL AS RECENTLY AS 2001 and their stadium, in the YEAR OF OUR LORD TWO-THOUSAND AND FOURTEEN, does not have permanent lighting fixtures.

It's nice to see a palpable synergy between the administration and the coaching staff. Morgan Burke and "their man" Mitch don't want to be competitive in high-major athletics, so head coach Darrell Hazell follows their lead and has fielded non-competitive football teams ever since he arrived on campus. That's the kind of brand unity that will get you places in the world of collegiate athletics.

And by "places", I mean the Mid-American Conference. Purdue could win the battle on Saturday, but as long as the tandem of Daniels and Burke is in place, they have no hope of winning the war.

And that warms my soul.

QUICK HITS

Just gonna drop some hard nuggets of truth / hate to close this out:

• Purdue fans often like to point out how poor Tom Crean's record is without Cody Zeller, as if Matt Painter has done anything of note since Robbie Hummel left.
• The "Cradle of Quarterbacks" is a lie. Purdue signal-callers have won one Super Bowl since 1967. Indiana's have won two. Sure, one was a backup and the other played wide receiver in the pros BUT STILL: terrible. Also, the one ring Drew Brees managed to stumble into was delivered to him via Hoosiers' defensive back Tracy Porter.
• Other QBs who have played for the Boilermakers (and lost to the Hoosiers) and have gone on to not play in the NFL get on Twitter and say hilarious things like this:

  

• TO BE FAIR: Mr. Henry didn't specify how many years it would take to win the 7 games (conservatively). They could easily reach that mark in aggregate next season.
• Credit where credit is due: Purdue was able to squeeze every drop of talent out of Harry from Dumb and Dumber and win a handful of games against teams that weren't ranked in a gimmick system, thus masquerading him around as a legitimate QB that wasn't actually horrible.