Purdue Offense Fails to Show; Loses to Rutgers 14-12

It speaks volumes to the job that Brohm has done in less than one season at the helm of Purdue Football that no one expected this outcome. No one expected Purdue’s offense to falter so badly over the last two games and result in a loss to Rutgers. Rutgers, a team that had not won back to back conference games during their time in the B1G. Well, now they have. They beat Illinois last week, and now they beat Purdue 14-12.

The Purdue defense forced seven three and outs. The Purdue defense basically allowed two big plays and that’s it. Rutgers didn’t even get close to the endzone except for those two plays. It turns out that wasn’t enough. If you look at the stats for this game you would be hard pressed to understand how Purdue lost this game. Let’s take a look shall we?

• Purdue had 195 passing yards to Rutgers 87.
• Purdue had 279 rushing yards to Rutgers 130.
• Purdue had 25 first downs to Rutgers 8.
• Purdue had the ball for 32:06 to Rutgers 27:54.

Sure there were also some stats that might color your impression of the game and give you an idea of why Purdue lost.

• Purdue threw two interceptions to Rutgers 0.
• Both teams were 3-15 on third down.
• Purdue was 1-4 on fourth down.

I wish someone kept an official stat on drops because the Purdue receivers had roughly a dozen of them. I wish that was an exaggeration. Let’s make clear, neither QB played well, but the receivers and tight ends did them no help. It wasn’t until the last catch by Anthony Mahoungou that finally scored Purdue’s first touchdown since the Minnesota game on October 7th that a receiver actually made a big play. Then, it all came down to the two point conversion. Purdue as down 12-14 and had :25 seconds left in the game so if they didn’t convert on this it was all over. Sure enough, the ball fell harmlessly to the turf. That was it.

There are a lot of questions I have about this game and the way in which it was managed.

• With Purdue down 8, Purdue drove all the way down to the Rutgers 30. With 11:00 left in the game Purdue opted to not cut the lead down but instead go for it on fourth down, they failed. Purdue turned the ball over on downs and didn’t score until the aforementioned catch with less than a minute to go.
• Why did Purdue have so many drives where they went away from the run?
• If Brohm wants to create a two QB system, since he seems to not totally trust both of them, why did he stick with Sindelar after the game he had? Blough came in for two seasons early on but we didn’t see him back until the end of the game.
• What has happened to the Purdue offense? The tight ends were supposed to be a strength but today they just couldn’t do anything.

Well, this one is done. We have Travis to blame as he continues his streak of Purdue losing games when he is in attendance at a road venue for the first time. This was the type of game Purdue needs to win if they want to return to respectability and to a bowl game. The offense has A LOT of stuff to work on. I want the receivers to be locked in a room and the doors don’t unlock until each one has caught 100 passes in a row. Purdue now sits at 3-4 and has much to do before next week.

A more in depth review will be coming from Travis but man this one hurts because we thought it was the type of game Purdue was going to win from now on.