Purdue Vs. Michigan State: 5 Things We Learned

After a huge win on national television, Purdue had its hangover a game. Something I saw coming all week. From the extra interviews, to the spotlight on Coach Brohm with rumors of Louisville circling, it was just set up to be a hangover game.

With 4 games left, Purdue has to win two of them to get to a bowl game. Something none of us saw as obtainable after an 0-3 start.

But, what did we learn from Saturday?

The first thing I learned is, we are not good enough yet to play poorly and still win. We need to be at the top of our game every single game. We just do not have the pure talent to play poor and win.

Secondly, I learned that we may have relied on Rondale just a bit too much. It was almost to the point where we were pressing the ball to him, trying to feed him. MSU did a good job of having two players on him. One over the top and one under. We ask so much of Rondale, we need to have a back up plan when he is actually taken away from our game plan. We just aren’t very good when we can’t get him to produce.

Third, the secondary has its holes still. I said it after OSU, we were lucky they didn’t try and stretch the field much, mostly they threw horizontally and we rallied to the ball. MSU did the opposite, they stretched the field and we just couldn’t keep up. This needs to be fixed, but I am afraid it can’t be until this off season.

Fourth, the pass game hurts when the threat of run is not there. The run game was pretty much non existent outside of one big rush by Knox. When we became one dimensional, MSU easily stopped us. Our running game is just as important as our passing game. This was evident Saturday.

Lastly, Special Teams continues to struggle. I feel like every week, we miss Tony Levine more and more. Schopper has been good, but outside of that, it has just been average. We need to win two of three phases every week, one of them needs to be special teams