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Purdue football: Boilermakers seeing chance at title slip due to their own mistakes
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Perhaps we should have seen this coming.
During the Boilermakers’ 4-game winning streak earlier this season, Purdue was winning despite itself, finding ways to pull out victories even though it was turning the ball over too frequently and suffering late-half or late-game defensive lapses. But the hope was that as the calendar neared November, and the path to the Big Ten West title became more clear, the Boilermakers would clean up their act, similar to what they did a year ago in winning 5 of their last 6.
Wrong.
Instead, what we’ve seen is Purdue repeating the same mistakes over and over — the critical turnovers and defensive breakdowns are now the norm, not the exception — and the Boilermakers aren’t able to overcome themselves. The result has been a ho-hum loss to Wisconsin, followed by an even more pedestrian 24-3 loss to Iowa, which was made even more numbing Saturday considering it was at home and came after a bye. So much for extra prep.
As other teams surge — Hello, Iowa! — Purdue is staying stagnant, or even worse, it’s regressing. It’s hard to argue otherwise. Quarterback Aidan O’Connell has leveled off, at best, this season, seeing his interception numbers ratchet up, collecting 8 in the last 3 games. It’s not helped him that he seldom gets to see open receivers; Purdue’s WRs aren’t getting separation, forcing him to throw into tight windows, some of which are too tight. His 2 interceptions came in the 1st half Saturday, with the turnovers playing right into Iowa’s hands on a windy, wet afternoon at Ross-Ade Stadium. A 17-3 halftime deficit felt more like 45-0.
But for as bland as O’Connell has been in the last 2 losses, Purdue’s pass defense has been worse.
The Boilermakers can not figure out what they’re doing in the back half of the defense, hemorrhaging big play after big play. Hawkeyes quarterback Spencer Petras, as maligned a QB as there has been in recent Big Ten memory, passed for 192 yards with 2 touchdowns and no interceptions. The back half of the Boilermakers’ defense is struggling to stay within sniffing distance of ball-catchers and isn’t able to bring them to the ground.
Purdue spent the bye week searching for answers, bouncing its DBs into different positions to see if anything worked, but by the time the game kicked off, only one change was made: Former transfer Bryce Hampton was in as a starting safety, replacing Cam Allen.
It didn’t matter. Purdue’s been gashed the last 2 weeks by Graham Mertz and Petras.
Look, when it’s November, and a team is regressing rather than improving, there’s only one direction to point. And coach Jeff Brohm recognized as much following the loss.
“It starts with me,” Brohm said. “I didn’t have the team ready to play, and we had guys that didn’t perform, and we got our butts kicked.”
Indeed.
Not all is lost for the Boilermakers. If Purdue wins its final 3 games, it could still become the division champs, although it would need a bit of help. But that just seems so distant right now, as Purdue watches a chance for a special season slip away.
It’s not as if these opportunities come often, probably only the 2023 season is left for a West Division championship, at least as it’s currently constituted. Then, USC and UCLA join the Big Ten and the conference gets even more crowded.
The time is now. Or, unfortunately, perhaps it was yesterday.
Kyle Charters, a familiar face at Gold & Black, covers Purdue, Indiana and college basketball for Saturday Tradition.