This is Not Good

Purdue wide receiver Selwyn Lymon was stabbed at a West Lafayette club last evening and is currently listed as critical but stable. (UPDATE: Lymon is now in good condition but Joe Tiller is still pissed.) It's unknown whether or not Lymon was inside Nick's Night Club, but judging from some reports - and interior shots like these - he may have been among the 200 or so revelers indoors.

Lymon had a reasonably decent season last year catching 33 balls for 580 yards and 3 touchdowns. His speed is exceptionally impressive, and Lymon figured to make a potent threat along with Dorien Bryant in Purdue's pass heavy offense this coming season. There's no telling what an injury like this can do to a season let alone a career.

Lymon is no stranger to violent injuries having been shot in the eye during a late-night paintball game last year. However, it doesn't seem like he's a stranger to the Purdue bar scene either - an interesting point considering he won't be 21 until this September.

I'm not going to pass judgment on Lymon being in a bar when he's 20. There's enough nervous nellies around to be aghast that college kids are fond of parties and drinking despite their ages.

I'm more interested to see how this plays out with the fans' tenuous relationship with Boilermaker head coach Joe Tiller, especially after safety Torri Williams was picked up for DUI on the very same night.

Tiller didn't throw Lymon onto the knife, nor did he buy Williams a round, but there's been a scuttlebutt amongst fans about a negative climate that had emerged within the football program especially after a 5-6 season in 2005 that was punctuated by the early exits of quarterback Brandon Kirsch and Kansas City Chief, Bernard Pollard - who happens to be Lymon's cousin.

Last season's personnel changes, the 8-6 record along with 18 of 22 starters returning had done a lot to assuage any bitterness in Boiler fandom, but sitting three weeks from the spring game and now having to deal with incidents - one life threatening - surrounding two starters kind of puts Tiller back at square one. His official response is to wait for further information, but Tiller had better watch out. These things, as detached from his leadership and control as they are, are just the sort of nuggets disgruntled fans latch onto when they're renewing the rights to FireTiller.com.

My sincere hope is that Lymon's recovery is fast and his future not terribly altered. That would leave only Joe Tiller's football condition in a "critical" status.