In 2010, Brian Kelly sent Declan Sullivan to his death because it’s very important to have video for your football practices, regardless of the weather.

An independent investigation found several contributing factors, Notre Dame president John Jenkins accepted responsibility, and … nothing. Jenkins is still president. Jack Swarbrick is still athletic director. Kelly is still the head coach.

The reason is obvious, at least to those of us who have lived somewhere near the ND fanbase: football is the #1 thing at Notre Dame, always has been, always will be. For as much as the Irish act like it isn’t, they’re just like everyone else, only worse because they pretend they’re different. (Ironic, then, that they still resist joining the conference that surrounds them - I’m sure they’ll find some way to resist absorption by the Big Pacacc - since as we know all too well, the Bee One Gee used to insist that they were so much better than the other conferences when, in fact, they turned out to have been worse.)

Accountability is only important for the little people. Kelly commits a recruiting violation? No big deal. An assistant coach commits a similar violation? Gone.

So it was Kelly doing his usual yelling on the sidelines in South Bend as Purdue came to visit for the first time since 2012, probably because Northwestern wasn’t available. Given ND’s struggles against what may be Jimbo Fisher’s last Florida State team and then at home against Toledo, Boiler fans could be forgiven for a bit of optimism. Surely this year could be different, right?

Right?

sigh.

Purdue was already out of the running when David Bell’s head bounced off the turf in what would be his last play of the game. After he was carted off, the Boilers kept playing, as one does, but it was hard to imagine anything good coming from the rest of the game. The offense started off poorly, to say the least, but when they managed a few good plays, the defense gave up a big one; when both were sort of in sync, special teams let them down. No one area was at fault … it was more of a team thing. Too many mistakes, not enough big plays.

That’s the odd thing about optimism. Sometimes it makes decent things look bad. The Good Guys weren’t blown out, but they never really got in it, and when AOC’s pass went through Payne Durham’s hands and into Kyle Hamilton’s for an end-zone pick, Purdue’s faint chances for a miracle comeback ended … on the road at a team just outside the top 10 in a game that Purdue finished without its starting QB, RB, and WR and lost by 14 points.

It’s hard to watch the Boilers line up with the QB under center and run the ball into the middle of the line over and over again and imagine that they could challenge for the division title … but you look at Iowa and Wisconsin and Northwestern and Minnesota and it’s hard to imagine that they can’t. You watch the defense let a receiver run right past them or a running back blow through tackle after tackle … then watch the line crash through and come up with a key sack, the secondary blanket some good receivers, the linebackers making key stops, and it’s hard to know which team you’ll get every week.

The Boilers have the talent to contend in the West … if they can stay healthy, which unfortunately is an asterisk the size of the Bee One Gee’s footprint anymore. If anything, it’s a testament to the entire team that they can be this competitive without key players.

But it’s becoming a bigger question if they have the coaching to contend. Purdue’s insistence on pretending they have a road-grading OL when that’s clearly not how they’re built or how they’re executing is just baffling. As talented as they may be, they make enough mistakes to put themselves in deeper holes than they should be, and it takes more work for them just to stay in games sometimes. Having to overcome playcalling mistakes makes it that much harder for the Boilers to break through the .500 mark that seems to be Jeff Brohm’s regular-season ceiling in West Lafayette.

It’s fair to point out that most of Brohm’s Purdue career has been clouded by injuries and COVID … but at some point, you want to see results on the field. That doesn’t necessarily mean winning games like this one, but it does mean winning your home games - even Wisconsin looks beatable this year - and beating weaker teams on the road. Something less than 7-5 during the regular season seems like a disappointment, I guess? Or maybe we should wait until the pandemic is over to expect real results - everyone still has a lot on their minds that isn’t football-related and there’s no telling what impact that has on the program.

Anyway. The result wasn’t what we were hoping for, the specter of yet another injury to the best player on the team looms over yet another Purdue football season … but Declan Sullivan is still dead, and Brian Kelly still has his job.