Quick Hits from the Jersey Scrimmage Including an Injury

Today Purdue took part in their annual jersey scrimmage. For those that don't know it allows the winning team, offense or defense, to choose which color jerseys they want to wear during practice. A bit of an odd thing to play for but hey whatever it takes to get things intense right? Generally in the past the winning side has chosen to wear the black jerseys with a few exceptions here and there. Today in West Lafayette the offense won the scrimmage rather handily with a score of 83-56. I would try to explain the scoring to you here but, and this is coming from someone enrolled in law school, it's convoluted and confusing.

When these types of scrimmages occur I'm always reluctant to be happy about a blowout of any type. If the offense runs away with a victory does it mean the offense is great or that the defense is that bad? With this Purdue team that has question marks on both sides of the ball it's tough to know which of those is true. Is the scoring the problem? Were injuries to certain players a factor? It's so tough to get a good gauge out of these things that I want to intone to everyone to take this all with a grain of salt. There's only a couple of things I want to touch on before we go into some stats.

First is the QB position. Coach has yet to name a starter but everything points to Appleby being the guy. He received the majority of snaps during camp and has looked like the starter all year. Today he looked to make that decision easier on coach as he went 13-23 for roughly 150 yards and 2 touchdowns, but most importantly for Appleby he threw 0 interceptions. That's going to be a key for him during the season. By comparison Blough had a similar day with similar numbers going 15-22 for 215 yards, 1 touchdown, but also two interceptions. These are unofficial numbers by the way courtesy of the GoldandBlack.com twitter account. Follow those fine folks would you? Those two interceptions were a real problem as you're always reticent to put the ball in the younger guy's hands if he is turnover happy. A decision on the QB position will more than likely be made next week.

The second bit of news coming out of today is that Danny Ezechukwu left the scrimmage with an injured knee. No word yet on the severity of the injury but with a Purdue athlete and a knee injury your mind automatically goes to ACL. Let's hope that's not the case. Earlier indications from Hazell are that it is NOT an ACL but we will just have to wait and see. Either way it could force a would be starter out of the lineup for at least the season opener. Ezechukwu was slotted into a starting linebacker role in a linebacking corps that was looking to take a much larger role in the defense this year since Purdue, ya know, has some actual linebackers. What this means for his season is too early to say but it might mean the chance for someone like Andy James Garcia or Garrett Hudson to step into a starting role, at least temporarily.

Now let's take a look at some quick stats from the day, again courtesy of Gold and Black. I want to emphasize again to take these stats with a grain of salt due to the format of the scrimmage and the odd nature of the scoring and team assignments.

• D.J. Knox 5 rushes for 60 yards
• Merkell Jones 5 rushes for 33 yard
• Dan Monteroso 7 receptions for 75 yards and a TD
• Anthony Mahoungou 4 receptions for 69 yards and a TD
• Cameron Posey 3 receptions for 36 yards

Also, note that Danny Anthrop did not play on offense thus explaining his absence from the stats above. On defense it's a bit of a mashup but let's take a look at some of the notable names.

• Wyatt Cook 12 tackles
• Robert Gregory 6 tackles with one sack
• Jake Replogle 5 tackles with one sack and a safety
• Andy James Garcia (possible new starting linebacker) 5 tackles with a half a sack