New Purdue athletic director Tommy McClelland fired a salvo at his in-state rival during his introductory news conference that missed its mark by about 100 miles.“We are here to win championships,” McClelland said in his opening statement Thursday morning. “If you don’t want to win championships, go to Indiana.”The distance in miles from Bloomington, the home of the defending College Football Playoff champion Hoosiers, to Purdue’s home in West Lafayette barely reaches triple digits. With football everyone’s mind in early August, a shot like that is more of a misfire than one drawing blood.When it comes to the Indiana-Purdue football rivalry, the Hoosiers have outscored the Boilermakers — who have lost 18 straight Big Ten contests — 122-3 over the last two seasons. You can almost feel the wincing in the Purdue football complex. With a charged-up Curt Cignetti at the helm at Indiana, the score might be 122-3 this November.Naturally, McClelland wasn’t serious … or was he?“Our new athletics director knows there is a passion-fueled rivalry between our two schools, and his comment was obviously made in jest,” senior associate athletic director Patrick Crawford said in a statement. “We look forward to continually spirited competition with the Hoosiers.”Eye-popping remarks are not unusual in the state with the motto Crossroads of America. Not even three years ago, Cignetti was introduced during a men’s basketball game and said something so outrageous that everyone thought he was crazy.“Purdue sucks …,” Cignetti shouted to the Hoosier faithful in December 2023, “but so does Michigan and Ohio State.”