Agreed. And I'm sure of that too.
If he's cleared to play, he'll play. If he doesn't, it's not like winning or losing to Illinois is going to change the entire trajectory of the season. We're likely a 4 to 6 win team. 5 to 6 wins if we beat Illinois. 4 to 5 wins if we don't. It would be nice to make a bowl game. But it is what it is.
There’s a tremendous difference between 5 and 6 wins for this program right now.
I agree with the first sentence. Not the rest. This is one of those games that Purdue needs to win to have momentum going forward. There are a lot of winnable games left on the schedule, save O$U. A loss to Illinois in my opinion is incredibly defeating.
Yeah, one win. In the end, Bell shouldn't and likely won't be the difference between winning and losing at Illinois. The defense will be. The OL will be. If he's out of the game, he's a tremendous loss from a confidence level for the team. But there's enough talent at WR there that they should be able to beat Illinois right now. If they don't, I don't think Bell would be the only difference maker. And if they can't beat Illinois, well...
The problem is that with Rice out too, and butterfingers on the other side, you really only have Anthrop as a reliable, accomplished WR. Sheffield, MMoore, Yaseen, Sullivan, Thompson...none strike fear, but at least one of them is going to have to step up. As deep as our WR corp was a few months ago, it certainly isn't right now.
It's easy to get frustrated with Wright. But he had some good games last year and has all the skills to be a very good receiver. He just needs to make the bread and butter catches and he'll be all right. Broc Thompson is also a good receiver.
The term Monday morning quarterback exists for a reason. I can imagine what people would say if the coaches put an unproven player like Sullivan or Yaseen out there against ND and they dropped a pass or ran a wrong route that led to an interception. There are a lot of good receivers on this roster, but none (aside from Bell) that are immune to dropping a pass. It happens. Heck, some of Tiller's teams would have 6-8 drops per game.
Jamari Brown was excellent against ND. He’s a big corner and he runs well. Outside of the 1 PI, he didn’t give much up at all.
IMO, not great. I was always curious as to why he came in with the accolades and the USAAAG invite and didn’t get PT. After watching him, he’s slow, an average blocker and doesn’t look like a great receiving target either.
Sometimes you and I have the exact same thoughts lol
I don’t see it that way at all. He’s young and hasn’t played much because the people in front of him (#87 and #88) are both more experienced and they are both talented.
Mackey has played pretty well so far this year. ND tried to pick on Brown much of the game (not Mackey). He held up well. Mackey is a little shorter and has had more trouble sometimes with bigger WRs in the past. Frankly, I think the secondary has looked much better this year. They seem much more assignment/technique sound. We’ve given up some big plays (Trice vs Oregon State, Kane against UCONN, Jefferson got burned vs ND), but we have been more solid this season than any season since 2017 I believe.
I agree that the secondary has looked much better. However, had Coan been more accurate on long throws, Mackey would have been burned more than once. He's let guys run right by him in 1:1 coverage numerous times. At this point, he's been more lucky than good.
On that first pass he caught? Charles Davis was a full step faster than that lol…
