Another game falls short in overtime. What’s gonna change?
Purdue 20 – Northwestern 26
Pre-Game
For the first time this season, apathy seemed to actually be on display in Ross Ade. Credit to the Purdue fans that despite winning 1 game this entire year, the fans have shown up in droves. But seemingly for the first time this season, there were noticeably less fans in the crowd. Part of that could be that Northwestern isn’t having a stellar year either and their fans weren’t scooping up any loose tickets, but I digress. Almost luckily, Purdue has just one more home game this season against a top 5 Penn State team and those fans travel well. All of this is to say is that Purdue fans have demonstrated really nice patience but at some point, their loyalty has to be regained with measures on the football field.
Offense
Maybe I’m nitpicking but I am growing really tired of Purdue’s lack of sensical play calling. The first drive of the game started with a shot down the sideline to CJ Smith in his first game as a Boilermaker; fair enough, it happens. But here’s the rub: Purdue’s offense seems nearly unable to be able to sustain a drive if every play does not gain yardage. The minute there is an incomplete pass or a penalty on first down, the offense just shuts down at the thought of gaining 5+ yards on back-to-back plays. On this drive, play #2 was an 8-yard Devin Mockobee rush; great, 2 yards to go to avoid a 3 and out. But no, the following play is a run up the middle against a stacked box that gets stuffed for a loss of a yard and Purdue is forced to punt. 81 seconds came off the clock and Northwestern already has the ball and momentum. I wish I could say that this was the only time a drive like this happened on Saturday, but 3 more drives would go nearly the same way. It would have happened a 5th time had Ryan Walters decided to kick a field goal in overtime (we’ll get to that). Doing the math on the season, Purdue has had a 3 and out 27 times this season. 3 additional times, Purdue went for it on 4th down after failing to get a first and turned the ball over. Purdue’s offense has had 76 drives (I didn’t count drives in the 5-10 seconds before halftime) against FBS teams this season. They have failed to gain even a first down in 33 of those drives.
Now, I am glad that Purdue did end up sticking to Hudson Card, who clearly was the better quarterback Saturday. Card had a pretty good day overall, throwing for 267 yards and a touchdown. Ryan Browne didn’t have a bad day, but this was Card’s offense.
Defense
It’s really hard to be critical of the defense at times when you know the players are gassed from being on the field more often than they should. That being said, the defense looked bad during this game. Northwestern’s offensive attack is by no means great, and the defense gave up over 400 yards to them. 8 different players had at least a 14-yard gain as Purdue gave up big play after big play after big play. This includes overtime where it took the Wildcats just 2 plays to drive 40 yards for the winning touchdown. Gassed or not, tackling was poor, assignments were blown, and the defense looked helpless.
Coaching
I don’t how else to say that Purdue is going to have to move on from Ryan Walters sooner rather than later. The decision to go for it on 4th and 6 rather than taking points in the first portion of overtime is just reckless. You have to play risk reward there and Walters just made the wrong decision. During the Illinois game, I defended his choice to be aggressive in overtime. This time, it was an awful call.
Takeaways
Purdue has played two games to within one score this season. Both games went to overtime and both games ultimately hinged on the decision making of the head coach. Say what you will about those decisions but it’s the fact that those are the only two things we can focus on that makes this so frustrating. If Purdue was 7-1 and their single loss was the Northwestern game, the tone of the conversation would be worlds apart from what it is now. But, because Purdue has been so awful this season with coaching incompetence as a major factor, we have to focus on these plays so heavily. Purdue fans have been clamoring for any sense of hope and twice now, it has been ripped away. That’s certainly a tough sell if you want to get fans to buy tickets next year without making a major change.
Anyways, onto next week in the cursed land of Columbus where Purdue will be 30+ underdogs on Big Noon Kickoff. Yippee.