Aidan O'Connell gets emotional after leading another game-winning drive vs. Northwestern
One week after coming off the bench in relief of redshirt freshman Jack Plummer, sophomore Aidan O’Connell delivered some more heroics for the Purdue Boilermakers in Saturday’s victory over the Northwestern Wildcats at Ryan Field in Evanston.
After struggling in the first half, O’Connell found his groove in the second half to engineer a game-winning drive resulting in a 39-yard field goal by redshirt junior J.D. Dellinger.
A product of Adlai Stevenson in Lincolnshire, Illinois, O’Connell played his high school football about 20 miles northwest of Evanston.
In addition to Saturday being his first career start, he also became the first walk-on to ever start at quarterback in the storied history of the Boilermakers’ program.
Andrew Pogar, Sports Director at WLFI (Lafayette, Indiana) shared footage of O’Connell after the game went final:
This is awesome.
Aidan O'Connell produces his second game-winning drive in as many weeks capped off by a J.D. Dellinger 39-yard field with 3 seconds left and #Purdue beats Northwestern 24-22.
O'Connell became the first walk-on to ever start at quarterback for the Boilermakers. pic.twitter.com/L2CsBdcdTp
— Andrew Pogar (@AndrewPogar) November 9, 2019
Finishing 34-50 for 271 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions, O’Connell and the Boilermakers will look to extend their winning streak to three games when they travel to Madison to battle the No. 13 Wisconsin Badgers on November 23.
Dropping to a startling 1-8, Northwestern is still winless in B1G play. Their final non-conference game of the season, the Wildcats host the Massachusetts Minutemen on November 16.