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Purdue fans are already wanting to see program part ways with 1st year DC Bob Diaco
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The Purdue Boilermakers shocked the league with a 24-20 opening weekend home upset over the University of Iowa, and followed it up the next week with a 31-24 squeaker over the Illinois Fighting Illini in Champaign to start the season 2-0.
Since those heady early weekends in October, the hopes of Boiler Up nation have come crashing down. Purdue has dropped three straight, including a 27-20 home loss to Northwestern, a controversial 34-31 road loss at Minnesota, and finally last weekend’s disaster in Piscataway, in which two Rutgers back up quarterbacks found a way to put up 37 points in a 37-30 defeat to the renewed and reinvigorated Fighting Greg Schianos. Thought it should be noted the Boilermakers allowed Rutgers a kickoff return touchdown, so in fact only 30 of the points belonged to the defense.
While the Boilermakers offense has been middling, the defense under first-year coordinator Bob Diaco is taking the full gale force winds of blame for the losing streak and season of broken dreams.
Diaco’s defense is surrendering a robust 28 points per game in 2020, but in the preceding five seasons prior to Diaco’s arrival, the Boilermakers allowed on average 31 points per game, including 38 in 2016, and 36 in 2015. The 2017 season in which they allowed an aberrant 20.5 points per game drags the averages way down. Minus that single standout campaign, the rolling average was 34 points per game prior to Diaco.
We’ve collected a series of Tweets from the Boilermakers faithful to be filed under the “Fire Bob Diaco.” It’s become obvious a certain outspoken segment of the fanbase wants to see a change on the defensive side of the ball immediately, calling Diaco a hire “doomed from the beginning” after his lurid disaster as a head coach at UConn.
Jeff Brohm hiring Bob Diaco as his defensive coordinator feels like a psychological assault directed solely at me. Purdue gave up 37 points (24 in second half, including an 18 (!) play clock killing FG drive), to the #2 and #3 backup QBs for Rutgers
— Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) November 29, 2020
(Though in all seriousness Rutgers’s OC is excellent, and the team is much improved. But this Diaco stuff is painful.)
— Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) November 29, 2020
https://twitter.com/JonathanDoud/status/1332801926396846080?s=20
On Defense??? I'm in. Get rid of Diaco tonight
— Ruffians About (@ruffiansabout) November 29, 2020
Damn near*
— The Rebuilding Year (@TheRebuildingYr) November 28, 2020
(Rutgers had a kick return touchdown, so technically the Purdue defense gave up 17 second-half points)
— Sam Cooper (@SamDCooper) November 29, 2020
Diaco was a doomed-from-the-start hire. I don’t get that at all.
— Derek Schultz (@Schultz975) November 29, 2020
Bob Diaco fired yet?
— Cheefe Keefe (@thethingaboutth) November 29, 2020
The 2-3 Boilermakers are at home next Saturday with Nebraska, and finish the season on the road against twelfth-ranked Indiana in the battle for the Old Oaken Bucket. Whether or not Diaco survives the season is a question soon to have an answer.
Mark Schipper is a reporter, sportswriter, and aspiring novelist living in Chicago, Illinois.