Sorry this would have been earlier but the Dodgers don’t have a closer and I had to watch the entire game.
Next up for the 2022 season and back in the friendly confines of Ross-Ade Stadium are the Nebraska Cornhuskers in a battle for 1st place in the B10 West.
Taking a look at the size and experience of the Nebraska Lines and LBs and seeing how they match up against Purdue's equivalents.
- In a departure from the past two weeks, the Nebraska O-line will be back to about a normal size for groups that Purdue will face in 2022 coming in at 302.0 lbs. which puts them well below average for Purdue’s opponents as well as for all the B10. Three full-time starters and one part-time starter return however their experience is also well below average with 2.8 years of experience. Note that Nebraska may automatically add in the “Covid Year” so that average experience could in actuality a year higher. The Covid Year doesn’t affect their starts and collectively, they have just 80 career starts.
- This week’s Purdue’s projected D-Line (Sullivan, Johnson, Dean, Jenkins) averages about 285.0 lbs, up about 2.5lbs from last year’s. They will be outweighed by the Nebraska line by about 17.0 lbs per man on average. Purdue’s average experience is 3.5 years, up a full year from last year’s line. As a unit they have 77 collective starts with all four starter having double digit starts.
- Purdue’s projected reshuffled LBs (Graham, Wahberg, Fakasiieiki) come in at 228.3 lbs, up a bit from the start of the season and are at 3.67 years of experience, also up from last season. With Graham back but Doulas and Brothers being limited or out, the number of starts rises a bit (courtesy of Graham with 28) and they now have a collective 35 starts between them.
- Purdue’s projected O-line (Moussa, Holstege, Hartwig, Mbow, Miller) will average 307.0 lbs per man, up a pound from last year’s 306.0 lbs. Losing Craig and now Johnson, they drop down dramatically in terms of experience with just a 2.4 year average. Collectively, they still have a relatively low number of starts with just 74. Overall, they may be more talented now, just not as experienced.
- Nebraska normally plays a standard 4-3 scheme with one of the DE’s being more of a rush-end (“Edge”). However, they have in the majority of their games, pulled the Edge and replaced him with their Nickle back, so that’s the configuration listed. Thus an adjustment is made by counting their largest LB as part of the D-Line and using the Nickle as a LB. After that adjustment their line comes in small at 263.75 lbs, Not as small as the Syracuse line, but the smallest in the B10. Even with their Edge Rusher, they only average 272.5lbs, which is third smallest in the B10 (Iowa, Rutgers). With a 2.5 year average of experience, they will be one of the youngest team that Purdue will face as well as the youngest (tied) in the B10. (Again, see note above about “Covid Year”) Three players are multi-year returning starters with the fourth a first year starter. They’ll be outweighed by Purdue’s O-line by 43.25 lbs per man. As mentioned, they’re largely returning starters so they’ll have a decent 66 starts between them.
- The Nebraska LBs will be the second smallest of Purdue’s opponents (Indiana) and also the second smallest in the B10 coming in at an average of 215.5 lbs. They will slightly below average in terms of experience with 3.00 years at the position and have just 56 starts between them. Two of their most experienced players (Tannon and Reiner) are at this position. Reiner did leave their game against Rutgers so his status could be in question.
Vegas opened up at Purdue -13.5. It’s now -14.0 with O/U at 58.0 (Note: I use VegasInsider for my line info. Other sites may vary)
MasseyRatings predicts a 31-24 Purdue win
Sagarin predicts a 10.75 point Purdue win using his “Golden Mean” rating (which is what I use). Note, it’s a 13.6 point spread using his “Recent” formula.
CollegeFootballPoll predicts a 20.79 point Purdue win.
Compughter Ratings predicts a 41-19 Purdue win with a 60 point O/U.
NEW CollegeFootballNews predicts a 30-17 Purdue win.
For those of you who care about recruiting ratings, here are the starter’s Rivals ratings:
Purdue…………………… Nebraska
QB O’Connell NR………. Thompson* (Texas)
RB Dorue 3*...................... Grant* (FSU)
WR Rice 4*..........……….. Palmer 5* (LSU)
WR Jones 2*…............... M. Washington* (Texas)
WR Sheffield 3*.............. Alante Brown 3*
TE Durham 3*................. Vokolek 2* (Rutgers)
LT Moussa 3*..................... Corcoran 4*
LG Holstege 2*................ Piper 3* (DT)
C Hartwig 4*.................... Hixson NR
RG Mbow 3*.................... Bando 3*
RT Miller 3*...................... Benhart 4*
DE Sullivan 3*................... G. Nelson 3*
DT Johnson 3*…………… Robinson 4* (DE)
DT Dean 3*….................. Feist NR
DE/LB Jenkins 3*............. Heinrich 4*
LB Fakasiieiki 2*....…….....Tannor 4*
LB Wahlberg 3* …………. Reimer NR (DB)
LB/ROV Graham 3*….…. Gifford 3*
CB Trice 3*.........……...... Newsome 3*
CB Taylor 3*.................... Hartzog 3*
FS Allen 3*......…….…..... Buford 3* (ATH)
SS Jefferson NR................. Farmer 3*
Nebraska is coming off their first true road victory (opener was a neutral site in a neutral country) with a come from behind 14-13 win against Rutgers and also their first 3 points or fewer victory since 2019. Combined with their prior week’s home win against IU, they have won back to back B10 games for the first time since late in the 2018 season.
After firing their head coach earlier this season, they are now 2-1 under their interim coach. In addition to the head coach, their defensive coordinator was let go following their game against Oklahoma. Since that time, Nebraska has gone from giving up 35.5 points per game to giving up less than half that number (17.0 points per game). While that is a significant improvement, the level of competition needs to be taken into consideration.
The Nebraska Offense is ranked 61st nationally. Broken down, their Rush Offense is ranked 62nd while the Pass Efficiency is at 61st. (at least they are consistent). They are however picking up 3rd downs at a 46.6% clip, good for a #28 ranking.
Scoring Offense is a bit lower at 78th however their Red Zone Offense is more in line with the rest of their offene at 64th. With the disparity between Total Offense and Scoring Offense, one looks to Turnover Margin where Nebraska has had problems this season being ranked 90th (-0.33/game).
One other note, Nebraska is ranked 22nd in number of 1st Downs gained. Unfortunately, Nebraska has been averaging 3.5 “big plays” (gains of 20+ yards) this season against P5 competition, so not a great deal of explosive plays. If I was going to categorize their offense from just the stats, I’d say they avoid a lot of 3 and outs, put have trouble stringing a lot of them together.
As noted, the Huskers imported a lot of their playmakers this season and Anthony Grant is probably as good of a back as Purdue will have seen this season (if you didn’t hear, Minnesota was missing Ibrahim). Averaging over 100 yards per game, stopping him should be Purdue’s #1 goal.
Besides Grant, Nebraska also uses a fullback-sized running back named Jaquez Yant, At 6’3”, 235lbs, he’s a load and used a lot in short yardage, averaging just over 2 carries a game and a 3.8ypc.
At QB, Thompson, while mobile is probably more like MD’s Tagovailoa than Syracuse’s Shrader in that he’s less likely to have designed runs as opposed to running when there’s an opening or to move around in the pocket, buying time. In that regard, having just played Maryland should bode well for Purdue’s schemes.
At wideout, another transfer, Palmer, is leading the team with 40 receptions, 3TD and a 13.6 ypc average. Big dropoff in production after Palmer with Marcus Washington having just 18 receptions and their TE (a transfer) having 13. Oliver Martin (Michigan/Iowa transfer) does have the rare stat of catching a TD for three different conference schools. Omar Manning (a transfer), a highly touted receiver hasn’t been used often and did leave last week’s game due to injury. His status is Game Time Decision.
Thompson isn’t classified as a GTD but is nicked up and has a sprained non-throwing shoulder. He’s been sacked 16 times this season and did have to leave last week’s game for a short time. In his place was Chubba Purdy (a transfer) who’s more of a runner than a passer.
The Nebraska O-Line is also banged up. Starting left tackle Prochazka was out following the Georgia Southern game (along with Scott Frosh) which forced their LG to move out to LT. The replacement at LG (Williams) lasted one game before he was out too replaced by their 3rd stringer, Piper. Their 2-deep this week just lists 8 different players. What’s worse, is that at full strength, they weren’t all that effective.
Defensively, as mentioned, Nebraska parted ways with their DC following their loss to Oklahoma. The new DC, Bill Busch, has tried to simplify the defense to allow the players to think less (especially good for this team since the “N” on the helmets stands for “Nowledge”. Tic).
The results, so far have been somewhat favorable as the Huskers have held both teams they’ve played since scoreless in the 2nd half of their respective games.
For the season, however it’s been a bit of a train wreck with their Total Defense ranked 116th (last in the conference); Rush Defense at 110th (last in the conference) and Pass Efficiency Defense at 45th (8th in the conference).
Scoring Defense is a bit better at 80th (13th in the conference) and Red Zone Defense is 85th (12th in the conference).
They are also in the triple digits (105th) in 1st Down Defense and 88th in 3rd Down Defense. The defense averages 1 interception per game and 1 fumble recovered every two games.
Not to pile on (pun intended) but as a team, Nebraska is 100th in Penalties Per Game and 70th in Penalty Yards Per Game.
While listed in the 2-deeps, several of Nebraska’s defensive starters are banged up. LB Reimer and CB Newsome both had to leave last week’s game and are GTD.
Nebraska is also starting a true frosh as the other CB spot in 5’9” Hartzog (also a returner). Rutgers was able to take advantage of him on several occasions last week although he did come away with an interception to seal their win. I imagine we’ll hear his name called frequently this week.
Nebraska’s strength of schedule is much lower than Purdue’s (per Sagarin) at 95th compared to 17th for Purdue. To date, again per Sagarin, their average 1A opponent’s rank is 82. For Purdue, it’s 45.
Purdue’s offense, ranked 57th nationally, will be right in the middle of what Nebraska will have faced this year with Georgia Southern (14th) and Oklahoma (50th) ahead of them.
Rushing Offense had moved up to 85th prior to the Maryland game but dropped back into triple digits being ranked 103rd this week but Pass Efficiency picked up the slack and moved up 13 spots to sit at 66th. Scoring Offense rose to rank 48th and Red Zone offense is now in the Top 10 at 8th Nationally.
Speaking of the Red Zone; Purdue has gotten the ball into the Red Zone 25 times this season, scoring on 24 with the only misfire against FAU when they failed to convert on 4th down, a 96% scoring ratio. What’s more, of the 24 times they’ve scored, they have a high ratio of TDs, putting the ball across the end zone on 21 of those 24 times (87.5%).
To compare. Last season, Purdue only scored on 86% of their Red Zone trips and only scored TDs on 27 of their 49 scores (55%). To put a finer point on it, in 2021 Purdue averaged 4.4 points for every trip into the Red Zone. This season, Purdue is averaging 6.16 points per trip. Quite the improvement.
As has been noted elsewhere is that Purdue has been hitting too many “dry” spots and not scoring nearly as prolific as they need to be. It is worth noting that they are ahead of where they were scoring a year ago at this point.
Purdue’s O-line had been pretty good in not allowing sacks. The reshuffling of the line and facing a good pass rush team brought them back down to a little above average, now ranked 61st in that category. They’re still doing well in allowing Tackles for Loss ranking 15th nationally.
Purdue’s defense continues to perform well, ranked 28th this week in Total Defense. Purdue’s Rush defense continues to hold primary running backs below their average and has not allowed more than 52 yards in a game to those backs which has helped them to their 17th ranking in Rush Defense. (Somewhat telling about the B10, that 17th national ranking is only good for 7th in the league)
Nationally, Purdue is 14th in Yards Per Carry allowed at 2.94. Here they are 4th in the B10 behind just Illinois, Michigan and Rutgers.
After a week where they went from 65th to 49th in Pass Efficiency Defense, this week they’re back at 65th. I expect that ranking to improve following Saturday’s game.
Scoring Defense dipped a bit is now 44th and Red Zone Defense dropped one spot from last week to 14th.
Purdue should have faced it’s best offenses it will see this season (PSU-38, Syr-40, FAU-31, MN-13, MD-26) so the above numbers should improve. Left on the schedule are NE-61,WI-65, IA-131, IL-67, NW-76 and IU-97
Weather looks to be a bit chilly on Saturday with temperatures at kickoff in the low 50’s to high 40’s. Light wind of 5mph and 1% change of precipitation.
Good news: The game will be televised by BTN.
Bad news: The “Analyst” is Matt Millen.
Supposed to be a sellout, or close to it. Hopefully it won’t be a “fake sellout”. Being a night game, it should be a raucous crowd awaiting the Huskers.
Odd stat of the week. Purdue is 3-0 when their first offensive play is a run. They have a 1-2 record when their first play is a pass.
Two trends were broken last Saturday. Purdue’s defense gave up a score on their opponent’s first drive for the first time. Prior to that, Purdue had forced either a punt or a turnover (ISU) on their opponent’s first drive of the game. On the other side of the ball, Purdue failed to score a touchdown on their first possession in a game they ultimately won. In their two losses, they turned it over on downs in one and punted in another.
Purdue is now 9-3 in their last ten games stretching back to last season. The breakdown is 5-1 at home, 3-2 on the road and 1-0 at neutral sites.
Even though Purdue was able to scratch out a victory last week, winning the second game of back to back road games is always tough. For Nebraska, they will also have to contend with their travel logistics. Due to their location, their plane ride to New Jersey would have taken around 8-10 hours round trip. They are now forced to travel another 4+ hours to get to West Lafayette this weekend.
Nebraska is 1-5 over the last two years on natural turf. They did win the last time they were at Ross-Ade in 2020.
Nebraska could/should have some momentum this week coming off their back to back wins. It would benefit Purdue to get up on the Huskers early and not let them come up for air. Take away the threat of their running game (and play action pass) and take advantage of what has been a porous O-Line.
Another big opportunity for the Boilers this week (as will it be every week the remainder of the season).
Let’s play football!
Next up for the 2022 season and back in the friendly confines of Ross-Ade Stadium are the Nebraska Cornhuskers in a battle for 1st place in the B10 West.
Taking a look at the size and experience of the Nebraska Lines and LBs and seeing how they match up against Purdue's equivalents.
- In a departure from the past two weeks, the Nebraska O-line will be back to about a normal size for groups that Purdue will face in 2022 coming in at 302.0 lbs. which puts them well below average for Purdue’s opponents as well as for all the B10. Three full-time starters and one part-time starter return however their experience is also well below average with 2.8 years of experience. Note that Nebraska may automatically add in the “Covid Year” so that average experience could in actuality a year higher. The Covid Year doesn’t affect their starts and collectively, they have just 80 career starts.
- This week’s Purdue’s projected D-Line (Sullivan, Johnson, Dean, Jenkins) averages about 285.0 lbs, up about 2.5lbs from last year’s. They will be outweighed by the Nebraska line by about 17.0 lbs per man on average. Purdue’s average experience is 3.5 years, up a full year from last year’s line. As a unit they have 77 collective starts with all four starter having double digit starts.
- Purdue’s projected reshuffled LBs (Graham, Wahberg, Fakasiieiki) come in at 228.3 lbs, up a bit from the start of the season and are at 3.67 years of experience, also up from last season. With Graham back but Doulas and Brothers being limited or out, the number of starts rises a bit (courtesy of Graham with 28) and they now have a collective 35 starts between them.
- Purdue’s projected O-line (Moussa, Holstege, Hartwig, Mbow, Miller) will average 307.0 lbs per man, up a pound from last year’s 306.0 lbs. Losing Craig and now Johnson, they drop down dramatically in terms of experience with just a 2.4 year average. Collectively, they still have a relatively low number of starts with just 74. Overall, they may be more talented now, just not as experienced.
- Nebraska normally plays a standard 4-3 scheme with one of the DE’s being more of a rush-end (“Edge”). However, they have in the majority of their games, pulled the Edge and replaced him with their Nickle back, so that’s the configuration listed. Thus an adjustment is made by counting their largest LB as part of the D-Line and using the Nickle as a LB. After that adjustment their line comes in small at 263.75 lbs, Not as small as the Syracuse line, but the smallest in the B10. Even with their Edge Rusher, they only average 272.5lbs, which is third smallest in the B10 (Iowa, Rutgers). With a 2.5 year average of experience, they will be one of the youngest team that Purdue will face as well as the youngest (tied) in the B10. (Again, see note above about “Covid Year”) Three players are multi-year returning starters with the fourth a first year starter. They’ll be outweighed by Purdue’s O-line by 43.25 lbs per man. As mentioned, they’re largely returning starters so they’ll have a decent 66 starts between them.
- The Nebraska LBs will be the second smallest of Purdue’s opponents (Indiana) and also the second smallest in the B10 coming in at an average of 215.5 lbs. They will slightly below average in terms of experience with 3.00 years at the position and have just 56 starts between them. Two of their most experienced players (Tannon and Reiner) are at this position. Reiner did leave their game against Rutgers so his status could be in question.
Vegas opened up at Purdue -13.5. It’s now -14.0 with O/U at 58.0 (Note: I use VegasInsider for my line info. Other sites may vary)
MasseyRatings predicts a 31-24 Purdue win
Sagarin predicts a 10.75 point Purdue win using his “Golden Mean” rating (which is what I use). Note, it’s a 13.6 point spread using his “Recent” formula.
CollegeFootballPoll predicts a 20.79 point Purdue win.
Compughter Ratings predicts a 41-19 Purdue win with a 60 point O/U.
NEW CollegeFootballNews predicts a 30-17 Purdue win.
For those of you who care about recruiting ratings, here are the starter’s Rivals ratings:
Purdue…………………… Nebraska
QB O’Connell NR………. Thompson* (Texas)
RB Dorue 3*...................... Grant* (FSU)
WR Rice 4*..........……….. Palmer 5* (LSU)
WR Jones 2*…............... M. Washington* (Texas)
WR Sheffield 3*.............. Alante Brown 3*
TE Durham 3*................. Vokolek 2* (Rutgers)
LT Moussa 3*..................... Corcoran 4*
LG Holstege 2*................ Piper 3* (DT)
C Hartwig 4*.................... Hixson NR
RG Mbow 3*.................... Bando 3*
RT Miller 3*...................... Benhart 4*
DE Sullivan 3*................... G. Nelson 3*
DT Johnson 3*…………… Robinson 4* (DE)
DT Dean 3*….................. Feist NR
DE/LB Jenkins 3*............. Heinrich 4*
LB Fakasiieiki 2*....…….....Tannor 4*
LB Wahlberg 3* …………. Reimer NR (DB)
LB/ROV Graham 3*….…. Gifford 3*
CB Trice 3*.........……...... Newsome 3*
CB Taylor 3*.................... Hartzog 3*
FS Allen 3*......…….…..... Buford 3* (ATH)
SS Jefferson NR................. Farmer 3*
Nebraska is coming off their first true road victory (opener was a neutral site in a neutral country) with a come from behind 14-13 win against Rutgers and also their first 3 points or fewer victory since 2019. Combined with their prior week’s home win against IU, they have won back to back B10 games for the first time since late in the 2018 season.
After firing their head coach earlier this season, they are now 2-1 under their interim coach. In addition to the head coach, their defensive coordinator was let go following their game against Oklahoma. Since that time, Nebraska has gone from giving up 35.5 points per game to giving up less than half that number (17.0 points per game). While that is a significant improvement, the level of competition needs to be taken into consideration.
The Nebraska Offense is ranked 61st nationally. Broken down, their Rush Offense is ranked 62nd while the Pass Efficiency is at 61st. (at least they are consistent). They are however picking up 3rd downs at a 46.6% clip, good for a #28 ranking.
Scoring Offense is a bit lower at 78th however their Red Zone Offense is more in line with the rest of their offene at 64th. With the disparity between Total Offense and Scoring Offense, one looks to Turnover Margin where Nebraska has had problems this season being ranked 90th (-0.33/game).
One other note, Nebraska is ranked 22nd in number of 1st Downs gained. Unfortunately, Nebraska has been averaging 3.5 “big plays” (gains of 20+ yards) this season against P5 competition, so not a great deal of explosive plays. If I was going to categorize their offense from just the stats, I’d say they avoid a lot of 3 and outs, put have trouble stringing a lot of them together.
As noted, the Huskers imported a lot of their playmakers this season and Anthony Grant is probably as good of a back as Purdue will have seen this season (if you didn’t hear, Minnesota was missing Ibrahim). Averaging over 100 yards per game, stopping him should be Purdue’s #1 goal.
Besides Grant, Nebraska also uses a fullback-sized running back named Jaquez Yant, At 6’3”, 235lbs, he’s a load and used a lot in short yardage, averaging just over 2 carries a game and a 3.8ypc.
At QB, Thompson, while mobile is probably more like MD’s Tagovailoa than Syracuse’s Shrader in that he’s less likely to have designed runs as opposed to running when there’s an opening or to move around in the pocket, buying time. In that regard, having just played Maryland should bode well for Purdue’s schemes.
At wideout, another transfer, Palmer, is leading the team with 40 receptions, 3TD and a 13.6 ypc average. Big dropoff in production after Palmer with Marcus Washington having just 18 receptions and their TE (a transfer) having 13. Oliver Martin (Michigan/Iowa transfer) does have the rare stat of catching a TD for three different conference schools. Omar Manning (a transfer), a highly touted receiver hasn’t been used often and did leave last week’s game due to injury. His status is Game Time Decision.
Thompson isn’t classified as a GTD but is nicked up and has a sprained non-throwing shoulder. He’s been sacked 16 times this season and did have to leave last week’s game for a short time. In his place was Chubba Purdy (a transfer) who’s more of a runner than a passer.
The Nebraska O-Line is also banged up. Starting left tackle Prochazka was out following the Georgia Southern game (along with Scott Frosh) which forced their LG to move out to LT. The replacement at LG (Williams) lasted one game before he was out too replaced by their 3rd stringer, Piper. Their 2-deep this week just lists 8 different players. What’s worse, is that at full strength, they weren’t all that effective.
Defensively, as mentioned, Nebraska parted ways with their DC following their loss to Oklahoma. The new DC, Bill Busch, has tried to simplify the defense to allow the players to think less (especially good for this team since the “N” on the helmets stands for “Nowledge”. Tic).
The results, so far have been somewhat favorable as the Huskers have held both teams they’ve played since scoreless in the 2nd half of their respective games.
For the season, however it’s been a bit of a train wreck with their Total Defense ranked 116th (last in the conference); Rush Defense at 110th (last in the conference) and Pass Efficiency Defense at 45th (8th in the conference).
Scoring Defense is a bit better at 80th (13th in the conference) and Red Zone Defense is 85th (12th in the conference).
They are also in the triple digits (105th) in 1st Down Defense and 88th in 3rd Down Defense. The defense averages 1 interception per game and 1 fumble recovered every two games.
Not to pile on (pun intended) but as a team, Nebraska is 100th in Penalties Per Game and 70th in Penalty Yards Per Game.
While listed in the 2-deeps, several of Nebraska’s defensive starters are banged up. LB Reimer and CB Newsome both had to leave last week’s game and are GTD.
Nebraska is also starting a true frosh as the other CB spot in 5’9” Hartzog (also a returner). Rutgers was able to take advantage of him on several occasions last week although he did come away with an interception to seal their win. I imagine we’ll hear his name called frequently this week.
Nebraska’s strength of schedule is much lower than Purdue’s (per Sagarin) at 95th compared to 17th for Purdue. To date, again per Sagarin, their average 1A opponent’s rank is 82. For Purdue, it’s 45.
Purdue’s offense, ranked 57th nationally, will be right in the middle of what Nebraska will have faced this year with Georgia Southern (14th) and Oklahoma (50th) ahead of them.
Rushing Offense had moved up to 85th prior to the Maryland game but dropped back into triple digits being ranked 103rd this week but Pass Efficiency picked up the slack and moved up 13 spots to sit at 66th. Scoring Offense rose to rank 48th and Red Zone offense is now in the Top 10 at 8th Nationally.
Speaking of the Red Zone; Purdue has gotten the ball into the Red Zone 25 times this season, scoring on 24 with the only misfire against FAU when they failed to convert on 4th down, a 96% scoring ratio. What’s more, of the 24 times they’ve scored, they have a high ratio of TDs, putting the ball across the end zone on 21 of those 24 times (87.5%).
To compare. Last season, Purdue only scored on 86% of their Red Zone trips and only scored TDs on 27 of their 49 scores (55%). To put a finer point on it, in 2021 Purdue averaged 4.4 points for every trip into the Red Zone. This season, Purdue is averaging 6.16 points per trip. Quite the improvement.
As has been noted elsewhere is that Purdue has been hitting too many “dry” spots and not scoring nearly as prolific as they need to be. It is worth noting that they are ahead of where they were scoring a year ago at this point.
Purdue’s O-line had been pretty good in not allowing sacks. The reshuffling of the line and facing a good pass rush team brought them back down to a little above average, now ranked 61st in that category. They’re still doing well in allowing Tackles for Loss ranking 15th nationally.
Purdue’s defense continues to perform well, ranked 28th this week in Total Defense. Purdue’s Rush defense continues to hold primary running backs below their average and has not allowed more than 52 yards in a game to those backs which has helped them to their 17th ranking in Rush Defense. (Somewhat telling about the B10, that 17th national ranking is only good for 7th in the league)
Nationally, Purdue is 14th in Yards Per Carry allowed at 2.94. Here they are 4th in the B10 behind just Illinois, Michigan and Rutgers.
After a week where they went from 65th to 49th in Pass Efficiency Defense, this week they’re back at 65th. I expect that ranking to improve following Saturday’s game.
Scoring Defense dipped a bit is now 44th and Red Zone Defense dropped one spot from last week to 14th.
Purdue should have faced it’s best offenses it will see this season (PSU-38, Syr-40, FAU-31, MN-13, MD-26) so the above numbers should improve. Left on the schedule are NE-61,WI-65, IA-131, IL-67, NW-76 and IU-97
Weather looks to be a bit chilly on Saturday with temperatures at kickoff in the low 50’s to high 40’s. Light wind of 5mph and 1% change of precipitation.
Good news: The game will be televised by BTN.
Bad news: The “Analyst” is Matt Millen.
Supposed to be a sellout, or close to it. Hopefully it won’t be a “fake sellout”. Being a night game, it should be a raucous crowd awaiting the Huskers.
Odd stat of the week. Purdue is 3-0 when their first offensive play is a run. They have a 1-2 record when their first play is a pass.
Two trends were broken last Saturday. Purdue’s defense gave up a score on their opponent’s first drive for the first time. Prior to that, Purdue had forced either a punt or a turnover (ISU) on their opponent’s first drive of the game. On the other side of the ball, Purdue failed to score a touchdown on their first possession in a game they ultimately won. In their two losses, they turned it over on downs in one and punted in another.
Purdue is now 9-3 in their last ten games stretching back to last season. The breakdown is 5-1 at home, 3-2 on the road and 1-0 at neutral sites.
Even though Purdue was able to scratch out a victory last week, winning the second game of back to back road games is always tough. For Nebraska, they will also have to contend with their travel logistics. Due to their location, their plane ride to New Jersey would have taken around 8-10 hours round trip. They are now forced to travel another 4+ hours to get to West Lafayette this weekend.
Nebraska is 1-5 over the last two years on natural turf. They did win the last time they were at Ross-Ade in 2020.
Nebraska could/should have some momentum this week coming off their back to back wins. It would benefit Purdue to get up on the Huskers early and not let them come up for air. Take away the threat of their running game (and play action pass) and take advantage of what has been a porous O-Line.
Another big opportunity for the Boilers this week (as will it be every week the remainder of the season).
Let’s play football!
Last edited:
