INDIANAPOLIS – The conclusion is not foregone. Oh, that’s not what you’re reading. That’s not what you’re hearing.

Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm to Louisville? No-brainer. Going to happen. Matter of time. That’s what you read. That’s what you hear.

And if this were another time, and if that were another man, then yes — foregone conclusion. Because in another time, a time not so long ago, Purdue football was a job to leave. And football coaches often do what football coaches do, preaching loyalty while their agent is on the phone, listening to offers.

But this is not that time, Purdue is not that job, and Brohm is not that man.

Listen, none of this is to say: He’s staying at Purdue. Especially not with that job open, the Louisville job, the one job in America where you really couldn’t blame Brohm for leaving Purdue, even after just two years, to take it. He grew up in Louisville. He played at Louisville. Coached there. Recruits there. Has family there. Still owns his old house there.

And Brohm didn’t exactly squash the Louisville talk at his weekly news conference Monday, when he acknowledged that he’s “heard the noise just like everyone else. … It’s important for me to not comment on any speculation. Right now, I have a job to do. … I’m going to stay focused on that. I’m very appreciative of the job I have right now.”

The job you have … right now?

Those words, this whole story, are a nightmare scenario for Purdue fans. They have suffered — you have suffered — for so long with this football program, neglected by an administration that wouldn’t invest in it, forcing the Boilermakers to erode inside fading facilities under bargain hires like Danny Hope. Only in 2013, when they hired Kent State’s Darrell Hazell, did the Boilermakers join the rest of the Big Ten and pay a seven-figure salary to its football coach … who went 9-33 overall, 3-24 in the conference.

Perceptions die hard. Purdue is not that job anymore, and hasn’t been since Mike Bobinski became athletic director on Aug. 9, 2016 and fired Hazell less than 2½ months later. To get Bobinski out of Georgia Tech, Purdue had to assure him the school was ready to invest in its football program. Because for so long, after a glorious tradition that included Bob Griese and Leroy Keyes and Drew Brees, “the cradle of quarterbacks” and all that, Purdue football had no commitment and no money, not even lights for Ross-Ade Stadium.

Look now, at this program on the ascent. But don’t look up there for too long — those lights might hurt your eyes. Yes, Ross-Ade has permanent lighting now. More is coming, too, much more: The basic scoreboard in the north end zone will be replaced by almost 3,000 square feet of ribbon scoreboard spanning the north end, bringing video and graphic elements while also giving the end zone a more intimate, more forbidding look. In the south end zone, Purdue will replace its current videoboard, maybe 65 feet in width, with a giant one closer to 240 feet in width.

And of course, Purdue’s $65 million football facility still smells of fresh paint, the school’s first major investment in the program — while a major arms race was escalating around college football — since the $10.3 million Mollenkopf Athletic Center opened in 1990.

Those are elements the world can see. Behind the scenes, Purdue has dramatically increased its budgets in areas unseen by fans: recruiting staff, strength and conditioning coaches, assistant salary pool, even the video and graphic communications that provide the bells and whistles noticed by recruits.

After turning down sleeping SEC football giant Tennessee a year ago, Brohm is in the first year of a seven-year, $29 million contract the school renegotiated with him after last season. His $3.8 million salary this season ranks in the upper quadrant of the NCAA (27th nationally, according to USA Today) and in the middle of the Big Ten (eighth, more than state flagship schools Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland and Indiana).

And recruiting? It’s going better than anyone could have dreamed. After scraping together the Big Ten’s 14th-ranked recruiting class of 2017 in his first few months on the job, Brohm pushed Purdue’s ranking to 11th in the league in 2018, and the Boilermakers sit fifth in 2019. Purdue landed four-star recruit Rondale Moore over offers from Alabama and Texas in Brohm’s first full recruiting cycle for the class of 2018, and has four more four-star recruits — from four different states — so far in the class of 2019.

This is sustainable, what Brohm is building, his first team going 7-6 and winning a bowl game and his second team sitting at 5-5 (4-3 in the Big Ten), that 41-10 disaster Saturday at Minnesota notwithstanding. Purdue beat No. 2 Ohio State earlier this season, then beat No. 16 Iowa.

But is it believable, that Jeff Brohm would turn down Louisville to stay at Purdue? Not in Louisville, where the media peppered athletic director Vince Tyra with Brohm references at the Sunday news conference where he was announcing the firing of Bobby Petrino. The references were oblique but clear, with Tyra first being asked if the next coach would be able to hire family members — Brohm’s brother, Brian, is his co-offensive coordinator — as Petrino so infamously had done.

“Nice bait,” Tyra told reporters, drawing laughter.

Later, it was suggested to Tyra — who graduated from Trinity High in Louisville, same as Brohm — that Louisville fans already had their hopes pinned on one candidate.

That candidate wasn’t named … until Tyra named him.

“I hear it. Obviously, I know it," Tyra said. "I know all the ties-in that Jeff has with Louisville. I know the ties-in that he and I have with Trinity. I've heard it all. But that doesn't mean he wants to be here. I just don't think it's worth speculating until we get to the end of the season and think about who's out here."

There are reasons, as I’ve already written here, that Brohm would want to be at Louisville. But there are reasons to avoid the job at this moment, one huge one in particular: Louisville football is a dumpster fire. The team is being blown out on the field and losing recruits off it, and the athletic department is in the middle of turmoil amid an NCAA investigation into former coach Rick Pitino’s basketball program and the loss of school sugar daddy John Schnatter, the Papa John’s founder whose financial support for the school (and name on the stadium) were removed after his use of a racial epithet earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Purdue is stable. Bobinski and President Mitch Daniels offer a strong, united front in the administration, and for most coaches, that ranks higher than you can possibly imagine. Earlier this year, visiting with the Query and Schultz Show after signing that contract extension, Brohm said: “Our leadership now, with President Daniels and Mike Bobinski and (Board of Trustees chairman) Mike Berghoff, those guys get it.”

Brohm also said this:

“I want recruits around the country, especially in the state of Indiana, to know I’m going to be here. I want to do this thing. I want to make a difference here. I want to recruit guys that want to come in and make a difference and put Purdue on the map.”

He meant those words then, I promise you that, but the Louisville job — his dream job — wasn’t open and didn’t seem remotely likely to be open for years. But now that it popped open, is Brohm still "going to be here"? Thought I told you earlier: I don’t know that. But I do know this:

The conclusion is not foregone, not just because of who Jeff Brohm is, but also because of what Purdue football has become.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.