So here's my sense after Purdue's maddening 35-31 loss to Penn State on Thursday: Purdue's gonna be just fine.
If the Boilermakers compete the way they competed tonight, if they show the sort of bouyancy they did tonight, and all that, and stretch it out over a full season and a user-friendly schedule, they're going to do some damage. They've got the quarterback, and it looks like he may have some weapons, led by the revelation that was Charlie Jones. The defense didn't look all that different to me from the unit that played really well most of last season, and on this night, the special teams sparkled.
There was a lot of positive tonight, most importantly the fact that Purdue rebounded from that Charlie Brown-ish end to the first half and still had this game won a couple of times. Purdue didn't finish the job, but it was resilient and it did make a number of really clutch plays. It's too bad some of those late third-down conversions were rendered irrelevant by the outcome, because those were big-time plays.
Purdue's gonna be fine, same as it was after losing games like this against Louisville and Northwestern to open the 2017 and 2018 seasons, respectively.
But the reasons it wasn't fine tonight were obvious.
Look, Purdue lost this game at the end of the first half. The Broc Thompson Drop/TJ Sheffield Fumble/67-yard TD sequence was a meltdown so brutal that Penn State ought to be checked for radiation poisoning.
That sequence lost the game, but once the game was won again, Purdue's flaws came to bear.
The Boilermakers were not fundamentally sound — not disciplined — enough to beat a good team tonight. TJ Sheffield has got to move that ball to his outside hand as he turned that corner and confronted traffic. Defenders have got to use their arms to tackle in the open field. The foosball approach led to a couple of big plays for Penn State whereas the football approach might have prevented them. The penalties, well, nine of them for 92 yards is a lot.
Not uncommon for Week 1 to come with a little roughness around the edges, and Purdue will have a whole bunch to lament on film on Sunday, err, Friday. Well, whenever they watch film after a Thursday game.
A lot of this stuff is fixable, one would think.
What may or may not be is the systemic limitations that outed themselves tonight, one that's not altogether surprising, but cost Purdue badly.
Jeff Brohm said after the game that to close the game out, Purdue had to make more "contested plays" to get the first downs needed to finish Penn State off.
What Purdue needed was more effective easy plays. This team is not built to run the football the way you'd love to be able to, and that contributed to a real situational-football failing in that fourth quarter. Purdue needed some offensive balance right then and there. It needed easy completions and at least the option to hand the ball off. Purdue felt it needed a sixth offensive lineman on the field quite often today to bolster the run game, and the limitations of its running backs was laid bare, as they more than once turned 10 yards gains into six. It is what it is, I guess, not all that dissimilar to moments from the past few years, but as I've said before: You're gonna miss Zander Horvath when he's gone. He'd at least run through some people in the open field now and again.
Logic says run the ball in those fourth quarter situations, right? Yep. But what Brohm couldn't say out loud after the game — "We can't!" — he said without saying it during that fourth quarter. I'll say what I've said about pretty much every season under Brohm: It's not about the rushing totals, but situational success and at least having the illusion of balance if not outright balance.
Also, the Garrett Miller thing is a problem. In the red zone — a real success story for Purdue tonight, I might add — and in four-minute offense, those two-tight end sets loom large, and Purdue just doesn't have it right now, it doesn't appear. Maybe the Mahamane Moussa/extra-lineman thing was the workaround there, I don't know.
Look, this is no one's fault.
Purdue is built a certain way, and when game contexts changes, your construction comes to the forefront.
Joe Tiller's teams struggled badly with four-minute offense, too, for a reason: They were built to throw, and then to run off the pass.
Purdue had to throw the ball up the field when trying to close the game out because it's what it does, even if that's not the M.O. optimal for those game conditions.
Purdue's got work to do, and the good thing about playing Penn State right away is that it shines a light on that instead of masking that inevitable reality.
The Boilermakers will get better from this, I think.
They'll be fine.
If the Boilermakers compete the way they competed tonight, if they show the sort of bouyancy they did tonight, and all that, and stretch it out over a full season and a user-friendly schedule, they're going to do some damage. They've got the quarterback, and it looks like he may have some weapons, led by the revelation that was Charlie Jones. The defense didn't look all that different to me from the unit that played really well most of last season, and on this night, the special teams sparkled.
There was a lot of positive tonight, most importantly the fact that Purdue rebounded from that Charlie Brown-ish end to the first half and still had this game won a couple of times. Purdue didn't finish the job, but it was resilient and it did make a number of really clutch plays. It's too bad some of those late third-down conversions were rendered irrelevant by the outcome, because those were big-time plays.
Purdue's gonna be fine, same as it was after losing games like this against Louisville and Northwestern to open the 2017 and 2018 seasons, respectively.
But the reasons it wasn't fine tonight were obvious.
Look, Purdue lost this game at the end of the first half. The Broc Thompson Drop/TJ Sheffield Fumble/67-yard TD sequence was a meltdown so brutal that Penn State ought to be checked for radiation poisoning.
That sequence lost the game, but once the game was won again, Purdue's flaws came to bear.
The Boilermakers were not fundamentally sound — not disciplined — enough to beat a good team tonight. TJ Sheffield has got to move that ball to his outside hand as he turned that corner and confronted traffic. Defenders have got to use their arms to tackle in the open field. The foosball approach led to a couple of big plays for Penn State whereas the football approach might have prevented them. The penalties, well, nine of them for 92 yards is a lot.
Not uncommon for Week 1 to come with a little roughness around the edges, and Purdue will have a whole bunch to lament on film on Sunday, err, Friday. Well, whenever they watch film after a Thursday game.
A lot of this stuff is fixable, one would think.
What may or may not be is the systemic limitations that outed themselves tonight, one that's not altogether surprising, but cost Purdue badly.
Jeff Brohm said after the game that to close the game out, Purdue had to make more "contested plays" to get the first downs needed to finish Penn State off.
What Purdue needed was more effective easy plays. This team is not built to run the football the way you'd love to be able to, and that contributed to a real situational-football failing in that fourth quarter. Purdue needed some offensive balance right then and there. It needed easy completions and at least the option to hand the ball off. Purdue felt it needed a sixth offensive lineman on the field quite often today to bolster the run game, and the limitations of its running backs was laid bare, as they more than once turned 10 yards gains into six. It is what it is, I guess, not all that dissimilar to moments from the past few years, but as I've said before: You're gonna miss Zander Horvath when he's gone. He'd at least run through some people in the open field now and again.
Logic says run the ball in those fourth quarter situations, right? Yep. But what Brohm couldn't say out loud after the game — "We can't!" — he said without saying it during that fourth quarter. I'll say what I've said about pretty much every season under Brohm: It's not about the rushing totals, but situational success and at least having the illusion of balance if not outright balance.
Also, the Garrett Miller thing is a problem. In the red zone — a real success story for Purdue tonight, I might add — and in four-minute offense, those two-tight end sets loom large, and Purdue just doesn't have it right now, it doesn't appear. Maybe the Mahamane Moussa/extra-lineman thing was the workaround there, I don't know.
Look, this is no one's fault.
Purdue is built a certain way, and when game contexts changes, your construction comes to the forefront.
Joe Tiller's teams struggled badly with four-minute offense, too, for a reason: They were built to throw, and then to run off the pass.
Purdue had to throw the ball up the field when trying to close the game out because it's what it does, even if that's not the M.O. optimal for those game conditions.
Purdue's got work to do, and the good thing about playing Penn State right away is that it shines a light on that instead of masking that inevitable reality.
The Boilermakers will get better from this, I think.
They'll be fine.
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