Hey, remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books from back in the day? They were a lot of fun. Sure, you never read any of the story, and just skipped ahead to the choices and turned to a page. Of course we all kept a hand or a bookmark on the page with the choices so we could choose again. More often than not, you would have to choose again because your first decision resulted in falling down a well or getting eaten by wolves or something.

Rather than having to think of something else to write about Purdue football in May, I have decided to make a CYOA.

We'll start after the jump. I hope you are satisfied with your choices, but if you aren't it's your fault because you chose your own path.

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Everybody watch your ACLs.....it's Purdue Potluck time.

Iowa's Most Hated Rival (thanks to Jim Delany) had a roller-coaster 2011 season -- a loss to Rice, a win over Ohio State, a bowl win, a contract extension for Coach Danny Hope....it was a fairly eventful year in West Lafayette.

So what better way to celebrate than with a Boilermaker (whiskey chased by beer) themed Potluck? (Feel free to follow the dish links to actual recipes). Follow the OTE writers and special guest BoilerTMill from Purdue's SB Nation site Hammer and Rails below the jump for 4800+ words on the red-headed step-children of football, the three-headed CaRobRob MaHenBush monster, contract extensions, another edition of the annual "how bad does MSULaxer27 think Purdue is going to be" game, and how to improve our favorite teams' mascots/colors/logos....

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The Head Coach--Danny Hope

The Skinny

After Danny Hope played tackle at Eastern Kentucky in the late seventies, he started coaching. He was an excellent offensive line coach at Louisville, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Purdue before a one-year OC stint at Louisville. Hope then moved on to coach the Eastern Kentucky Colonels (1-A) where he compiled a 35-22 record in five seasons.

In an effort to replicate the success that the basketball team had in its transition from Gene Keady to Matt Painter, Hope spent the 2008 year as an associate head coach in Joe Tiller's final season. In Hope's first season the team had a lot of offensive weapons, but lost a lot of close games and ended up with a 5-7 record. Purdue beat #7 Ohio State at home that year, but close losses to Oregon, Northwestern and Michigan State kept them home during bowl season.

The 2010 season was marked by injuries (the ACL kind, of course) and ended with a terrible loss at home to Indiana. Some fans are on the fence as to whether or not Coach Hope gets a pass on this season due to the injuries. The anti-Hopes point to another loss to a MAC team, and the poor performance against an equally bad IU squad. The pro-Hopes, or at least the not-anti-Hopes say that the season-ending injuries in almost all of the skill positions were too much for any coach to overcome.

Last season Purdue was extremely inconsistent. After the Rice loss, which included attempting a game-winning FG with the clock running, rather than spiking the ball in order to stop the clock as well as calling a timeout because the team didn't know what they were going to do on fourth down (they punted after the TO). Rob Henry went into Fall Practice as the consensus #1 QB, but he of course tore his ACL. Hope then went with a two-QB system that almost everyone hated, but it was good enough to win six games and head to Detroit.

When Danny Hope came in at the end of the Joe Tiller Era, Purdue fans were ready for a change. Tiller seemed to lack the fire that he had when he first came to West Lafayette and looked like he was going through the motions. Tiller was never a high energy guy, but Danny Hope brought a great attitude with him to Purdue, if nothing else.

Hope's relentless positivity and energy is either his greatest asset or his most annoying one. When he got in Rich Rod's face to stick up for his player at the end of a game, people liked it. When he refused to say anything bad about the team after one of many terrible losses, they thought he was delusional and happy with mediocrity.

After Purdue beat Illinois last season in the Homecoming game, I saw some of that positive energy first-hand. Hope followed the players into the tunnel after the game, exchanging high fives with fans, thanking them for coming to the game and wishing them a happy homecoming. He is a very likable person, and it is easy to root for him. There is no question about that. The question is whether or not he is a good coach. Most Purdue fans would find him guilty of being a bad coach, but my personal jury is still out.

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FIFTH IN A SERIES: PURDUE COCKTAIL PARTY PREVIEW

On last season

The good news is...

Purdue finished with a winning record and their first bowl appearance (and win) since 2007. Home wins over a down Ohio State team and Illinois, who had just started their free-fall, were nice to have. After playing poorly in their four non-con games, Purdue bounced back with a 4-4 mark in Big Ten play. Winning the Bucket back from a hapless IU team, and beating Western Michigan in the Pizza Bowl helped turn a very inconsistent season into a decent one.

The bad news is...

Purdue looked pretty terrible for large chunks of the season. It took a late fourth quarter TD drive to beat Middle Tennessee at home, and the last-second field goal attempt at Rice was blocked, giving Danny Hope a bad non-con loss in each of his three seasons. Home attendance was bad all year, except for the Notre Dame game, where the Boilermaker faithful were treated to an abomination. Despite having kicked off, it only took Notre Dame 3 plays and 24 seconds to get a 7-0 lead. It is the worst Purdue game I have seen in person. The Boilers were also embarrassed at Wisconsin 62-17.

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After a long layoff, the All-Time Since 1996 Big Ten Football Tournament is back. In case you don't remember (it has been awhile), this is a tournament pitting the best teams from each school on Whatifsports.com. For a more detailed explanation, click here. We'll be posting these every Saturday until it is finished, as imaginary football games on Saturday are better than none at all.

For the third game in the first round, we have the #6 2002 Iowa Hawkeyes against the #11 2003 Minnesota Golden Gophers. Before we get to the game, here is some background on our teams.

#11 2003 Minnesota

10-3 (5-3); Beat Oregon in Sun Bowl

(Elsa/Getty Images)

Head Coach Glen Mason had a very potent running attack in 2003. The backfield duo of Marion Barber III and Laurence Maroney helped the Gophers average a ridiculous 289 yards/game on the ground. QB Asad Abdul-Khaliq kept opponents honest by throwing for over ten yards per attempt and managing 17 TDs to just 5 INTs. The defense wasn't quite as solid. In two of their three losses on the season, UM managed to lose despite scoring at least 35 points. They also won Paul Bunyan's Axe in 2003, which is their most recent win against Wisconsin.

#6 2002 Iowa

11-2 (8-0); Lost to USC in Orange Bowl

(AP Photo/Quad City Times)

The 2002 Hawkeyes went undefeated in conference play, but didn't even win an outright title. Ohio State was also undefeated that year and the two teams didn't play each other (obviously). After an early season loss to hated-rival Iowa State, Iowa rolled off nine straight wins, including all eight of their conference games. The streak included impressive road wins at Penn State and Michigan. QB Brad Banks won the AP Player of the Year Award, Dallas Clark won the TE Award and Nate Kaeding won the Kicker Trophy. #3 USC easily won their Orange Bowl matchup, but that doesn't take away all that the Hawkeyes accomplished in 2002. Most would agree that this was Ferentz's best team, even if Ricki Stanzi wasn't involved.

Enough with the background, let's click on and see who won!

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Oh look, it's finally my turn to take a stab at this whole hate thing. Outside of a fairly kind diatribe against Michigan last year, I find myself still trying to muster up enough hate to feel like I am in the big leagues. Maybe it's the good ol' boy Midwestern thing we have going in the Cornhusker state, and maybe it's the fact that we've barely played most of the teams in the B1G, but as a general rule of thumb, it's been really difficult to hate anybody. I mean, you've just been so nice... So when given the opportunity to actually try my hand at hating, the obvious place to start was Northwestern. After all, if I'm going to start somewhere, it might as well be the minor leagues, right?

Seriously though, I was trying to come up with reasons why I hate Northwestern, but other than their uncanny ability to beat Nebraska in everything and their love of the moniker NU, I was having trouble really understanding why anyone even cares about Northwestern. And then I had an epiphany. Do you know why I hate Northwestern? I hate them because everything they talk about pretty much amounts to just another moral victory. Whether it's their record breaking attendance, unprecedented bowl streak, great coach, or room of pelts, pretty much all Northwestern fans resort to obnoxious retorts about how Northwestern will one day be a juggernaut. Well, I'm here to dispel that notion by debunking some lines of Moral Victory Rhetoric that Northwestern fans likes to tout. When we're done, we'll see why Northwestern is just an expensive version of another annoying team from my past.

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I'm a Northwestern optimist. I wear purple-shaded glasses when it comes to my favorite team. Last year, I picked Northwestern to go 11-1 before the season....and while I was clearly proven wrong, my "glass half-full" soul still believes Northwestern was much closer to 11-1 than their record suggests (see below).

I'm a homer.

And I do not apologize for it.

College football is supposed to be fun, right? Well, I don't particularly think it's "fun" to bitch and moan about my team, to dissect its flaws, or to loudly advocate for the firing of a coach or coordinator. If that's fun for you....go for it. There's certainly an increasing number of fans of Northwestern who will be happy to join you -- who want to fire defensive coaches (defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz and defensive backs coach Jerry Brown are frequent targets of ire), lower academic standards for athletes because they feel it's impossible to compete with the current admissions standards, or find fault with Fitz's "Go Cats!" cheerleading or his gameday management or his "failure" to win a Big Ten title as quickly as his 2 predecessors. Hell, some fans even think Fitz should be fired.

Don't expect me to join in. Instead, I'm going the other way. I'm going to tell you why Northwestern is building itself into a juggernaut. Follow me below the jump for some unconventional wisdom on why Northwestern's slide in the wins column from 2008-2011 has masked some dramatic improvement in the Cats....

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Good day to you, proletariat. I know most you like to think of this at our ‘potluck' day, but this is Northwestern week, and potluck is such a...commoner word. Northwesterners are far superior to you, the great unwashed, and they don't do such lowbrow things as ‘potluck'. Oh, there's a feast prepared for you, but we'll call it fyte de village today, and it will be done exceedingly well, dahling. The fare is catered in from one of the finest French restaurants that Chicago has to offer, Les Nomades, and no expense has been spared. Why no, they don't cater, but they do for Northwestern. The cost? Oh, aren't you silly sitting there in your blue collar! That's so cute. They are Northwestern, the 1% of the 1%. Pish posh on the cost. This is money they would've just burned in one of their seven fireplaces, anyway.

So if you wouldn't mind, they'll put you in the good hands of Jean-Claude, the consummate Gentlemen's Gentleman. He'll help you...

//disdainful once over look//

...change into more appropriate attire, and give you a quick etiquette lesson on the use of the shrimp fork and how not to tuck your napkin under your collar. We're looking at you, Iowa fan. So when you're done changing, please follow Jean-Claude to the South Lawn. Once there, find your table on the seating chart and enjoy the 3 piece string ensemble. And please, enjoy some wine. Nothing out of the expensive bottles--those are reserved for Northwestern alumni. For you, we have a lovely selection of box wines. Or light beer.

And do engage in some topical conversation (but not above a whisper so as not to drown out the music) about the shelf life of Pat Fitzgerald, where Northwesternworld is and whether or not Nebraska is scared of it, the beast that might be Cain Kolter, cartwheeling quarterbacks, some backhanded slaps at Illinois and Notre Dame, and reviewing the worst Heisman trophy winner in history.

We also have some guest participation from our friends at Sippin' on Purple and Lake the Posts. They are hands down the two best Northwestern blogs on the Internet, and also the richest. So please, make sure you introduce yourself to them over by the bar. They will be easily distinguishable---they'll be wearing the Armani suit, and you'll be in your...

//another disdainful look

...sweatshirt, I'm sure.

Oh, and when you're done, please leave through the servant's entry. And leave the coat and tie. And the shrimp fork. Jean-Claude, when you're done with the riff raff, call the boathouse and have Capt. Schettino prepare the yacht, there's an after party out on Lake Michigan later. Invitation only, old boy, and you don't have one.

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