Purdue's going to win some more games this season.
That is, if the Boilermakers play at the level they played at Saturday against mighty Michigan State - defensive improvement assumed here - then this is a team that can push for .500 or better.
This is a profoundly improved football team from the sorry product you saw on the field a year ago at this time, and now that the quarterback play has been solidified, it's really showing.
Purdue got beat by a better team Saturday afternoon, into the evening, a much better team. But the Boilermakers represented themselves nobly, as they have a funny way of doing in this around-dusk-or-later national TV games.
It's done it twice now against Notre Dame, now Michigan State.
A cadaver last season and as recently as a few weeks ago, the offense is alive and kicking, an group that just put 31 points on one of the best, biggest and baddest defenses in college football, a defense it could hardly so much as breathe against in East Lansing last season.
Austin Appleby's energy is pouring through this offense to the point it's not just functional, but, dare I say, good. Yes, it can all go poof tomorrow and there's no undoing Purdue's four-yard eyesore of a third quarter, but still.
The offense played hard against Michigan State, rising to the level of its opposition as its receivers and tight ends did wonders as downfield blockers and on the boundary. They gave great effort.
Is there some Appleby evident there? Well, if you were a wide receiver and you saw the first-game starting QB last week roll out and find Danny Anthrop for that 80-yard TD at Illinois, wouldn't you give great effort, too? With Appleby seems to come a belief that effort will be rewarded and a play can be made on any snap for anyone. Purdue's receivers look emboldened right now; before they looked as animated as my mailbox.
Maybe I'm way off base there or maybe I'm falling hook, line and sinker for a flash-in-the-pan, but I don't think so. Appleby has brought a very distinct energy to those around him.
After the game, Appleby spoke, the way Appleby speaks, with great passion and almost unnerving conviction, about Purdue's offense's capability to be "great." In the wake of a loss, three players sat at the same table, all quietly nodding their heads. It looked like they were hanging on his words.
Purdue was almost great on Saturday, but still just almost. A year ago, almost was akin to a win. The expectation has changed, or at least is under renovation.
Close wasn't good enough against the Spartans, not when so much had happened to give Purdue the chance it needed. This wasn't that underdog-leads-then-fades-late template. It was the underdog getting fenced in, but digging under it and earning a chance to nearly run away with a win, or at least overtime.
There was no asterisk here. Michigan State didn't OD on
Nyquil the night this game like it seemed to last season. Its offense
was surgical out of the gate, ready to play as can be, while its defense
simply got gouged by a superior game plan and better execution.
Purdue's way of moving the offensive battlefield away from the box may
have just set off a lightbulb in the head of every offensive coordinator yet to play the Spartans this season.
This game came down to many things, any one thing here or there going differently perhaps writing an entirely different narrative on this day.
It was just two weeks ago that Purdue could have won with defense against Iowa, but instead lost with offense.
Today, the script flipped, as the Boilermaker players and coaches found Michigan State's vaunted defense's soft underbelly and picked at it repeatedly, while the defense got picked on repeatedly to begin the game.
Not to be flippant about this, but now they're even.
There was no way around Sean Robinson's loss being a major one for Purdue and don't think that didn't play a key role in the defense getting run through like tissue paper in the first half. Robinson was not only one of Purdue's best players, but he was its best leader, its most indispensible personality.
(Oh, and Michigan State's really good.)
No one player would have entirely turned around a first half in which Michigan State did pretty much whatever it wanted, but there's no question it would have softened the blunt force and in the totality of this game, any little bit of better early may have been of great magnitude late.
If Leroy Clark makes Connor Cook pay for a bone-headed throw by making an interception at the Boilermaker goal line, maybe things are different 35 minutes of game time later. If Frankie Williams makes a very catchable interception a little bit later, the same.
Oh well.
The Robinson-less defense, to its credit, gave the Boilermakers a chance. Williams' interception led to a touchdown. The snuffed-out fake field goal - still too surreal to even believe Michigan State engaged in such lunacy - gave Purdue the ball back, if you credit "defense" for that instead of special teams. Purdue got off the field when it had to later, giving the offense the ball back with three minutes left, down seven.
What more could you want?
Appleby made a mistake on the pick-six, a mistake under extreme duress but a mistake nonetheless. It wasn't the first time in this game he'd thrown the ball away recklessly trying to avoid a sack, so maybe he was due for it to blow up in his face, but when you have someone who's shown the past four quarters to be a playmaker, you have to take the good with the bad. It happens. It was a regrettable moment, perhaps one that shines a little bit of light on the reasons he was passed over a few times for the opportunity he waited until last weekend to get.
It's just ironic that Purdue went from a quarterback you pleaded with to throw the ball away instead of taking sacks to one where it would have been best for all parties a few times for him to just eat the ball.
But that's Appleby, trying to make something happen. The only way to make something happen is to try to, though, and it's become increasingly clear that Purdue has its quarterback set indefinitely, provided mistakes like that one don't happen so often from here on out they rankle this turnover-averse staff.
Appleby is the final piece, the catalyst that has highlighted Purdue's improvement in so many other areas and made it a truly competitive team.
A team that's going to beat some people this year.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2014. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
This post was edited on 10/11 8:54 PM by Brian_GoldandBlack.com
That is, if the Boilermakers play at the level they played at Saturday against mighty Michigan State - defensive improvement assumed here - then this is a team that can push for .500 or better.
This is a profoundly improved football team from the sorry product you saw on the field a year ago at this time, and now that the quarterback play has been solidified, it's really showing.
Purdue got beat by a better team Saturday afternoon, into the evening, a much better team. But the Boilermakers represented themselves nobly, as they have a funny way of doing in this around-dusk-or-later national TV games.
It's done it twice now against Notre Dame, now Michigan State.
A cadaver last season and as recently as a few weeks ago, the offense is alive and kicking, an group that just put 31 points on one of the best, biggest and baddest defenses in college football, a defense it could hardly so much as breathe against in East Lansing last season.
Austin Appleby's energy is pouring through this offense to the point it's not just functional, but, dare I say, good. Yes, it can all go poof tomorrow and there's no undoing Purdue's four-yard eyesore of a third quarter, but still.
The offense played hard against Michigan State, rising to the level of its opposition as its receivers and tight ends did wonders as downfield blockers and on the boundary. They gave great effort.
Is there some Appleby evident there? Well, if you were a wide receiver and you saw the first-game starting QB last week roll out and find Danny Anthrop for that 80-yard TD at Illinois, wouldn't you give great effort, too? With Appleby seems to come a belief that effort will be rewarded and a play can be made on any snap for anyone. Purdue's receivers look emboldened right now; before they looked as animated as my mailbox.
Maybe I'm way off base there or maybe I'm falling hook, line and sinker for a flash-in-the-pan, but I don't think so. Appleby has brought a very distinct energy to those around him.
After the game, Appleby spoke, the way Appleby speaks, with great passion and almost unnerving conviction, about Purdue's offense's capability to be "great." In the wake of a loss, three players sat at the same table, all quietly nodding their heads. It looked like they were hanging on his words.
Purdue was almost great on Saturday, but still just almost. A year ago, almost was akin to a win. The expectation has changed, or at least is under renovation.
Close wasn't good enough against the Spartans, not when so much had happened to give Purdue the chance it needed. This wasn't that underdog-leads-then-fades-late template. It was the underdog getting fenced in, but digging under it and earning a chance to nearly run away with a win, or at least overtime.
There was no asterisk here. Michigan State didn't OD on
Nyquil the night this game like it seemed to last season. Its offense
was surgical out of the gate, ready to play as can be, while its defense
simply got gouged by a superior game plan and better execution.
Purdue's way of moving the offensive battlefield away from the box may
have just set off a lightbulb in the head of every offensive coordinator yet to play the Spartans this season.
This game came down to many things, any one thing here or there going differently perhaps writing an entirely different narrative on this day.
It was just two weeks ago that Purdue could have won with defense against Iowa, but instead lost with offense.
Today, the script flipped, as the Boilermaker players and coaches found Michigan State's vaunted defense's soft underbelly and picked at it repeatedly, while the defense got picked on repeatedly to begin the game.
Not to be flippant about this, but now they're even.
There was no way around Sean Robinson's loss being a major one for Purdue and don't think that didn't play a key role in the defense getting run through like tissue paper in the first half. Robinson was not only one of Purdue's best players, but he was its best leader, its most indispensible personality.
(Oh, and Michigan State's really good.)
No one player would have entirely turned around a first half in which Michigan State did pretty much whatever it wanted, but there's no question it would have softened the blunt force and in the totality of this game, any little bit of better early may have been of great magnitude late.
If Leroy Clark makes Connor Cook pay for a bone-headed throw by making an interception at the Boilermaker goal line, maybe things are different 35 minutes of game time later. If Frankie Williams makes a very catchable interception a little bit later, the same.
Oh well.
The Robinson-less defense, to its credit, gave the Boilermakers a chance. Williams' interception led to a touchdown. The snuffed-out fake field goal - still too surreal to even believe Michigan State engaged in such lunacy - gave Purdue the ball back, if you credit "defense" for that instead of special teams. Purdue got off the field when it had to later, giving the offense the ball back with three minutes left, down seven.
What more could you want?
Appleby made a mistake on the pick-six, a mistake under extreme duress but a mistake nonetheless. It wasn't the first time in this game he'd thrown the ball away recklessly trying to avoid a sack, so maybe he was due for it to blow up in his face, but when you have someone who's shown the past four quarters to be a playmaker, you have to take the good with the bad. It happens. It was a regrettable moment, perhaps one that shines a little bit of light on the reasons he was passed over a few times for the opportunity he waited until last weekend to get.
It's just ironic that Purdue went from a quarterback you pleaded with to throw the ball away instead of taking sacks to one where it would have been best for all parties a few times for him to just eat the ball.
But that's Appleby, trying to make something happen. The only way to make something happen is to try to, though, and it's become increasingly clear that Purdue has its quarterback set indefinitely, provided mistakes like that one don't happen so often from here on out they rankle this turnover-averse staff.
Appleby is the final piece, the catalyst that has highlighted Purdue's improvement in so many other areas and made it a truly competitive team.
A team that's going to beat some people this year.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2014. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
This post was edited on 10/11 8:54 PM by Brian_GoldandBlack.com
