Well, on a day when Purdue took another significant step backward, suffering a loss of historic proportion on its own field, this transitional season for the Boilermakers just veered in a different direction.
Now that Danny Etling replaced Rob Henry at quarterback, there's no going back.
We know how Darrell Hazell feels about the quarterback position, that he wants one guy to know he has ownership of the position and for the team have the same knowledge.
And the last thing this team needs is that constant question of who'll be taking the next series or even the next snap, for whichever quarterback is in the game to be looking over his shoulder.
So though Hazell wasn't ready to say it just minutes after his team lost 55-24 to Northern Illinois, the team, and maybe the program, will be moving forward with the strong-armed rookie under center, a difficult situation to be in but the reality of the situation nonetheless.
What Saturday's loss to Northern Illinois, which scored more points than any other visiting team in the 89 years football has been played in Ross-Ade Stadium, proved yet again was that quarterback was far from the Boilermakers' only problem.
Jordan Lynch is absolutely outstanding, make no mistake, just like Melvin Gordon last week at Wisconsin.
But defensively, the Boilermakers have had no answer whatsoever.
Part of that is injury, part of it is, just well, how good was Purdue on defense last year, or the year before that, or the year before that?
It is what is, you know?
You can apply that across the board, because this is a roster with a limited ceiling and absolutely no margin for error.
Northern Illinois beat Purdue; Purdue blew itself out.
The turnovers, all five of them, were one thing. The kickoff return was another.
That was the play of the game and the explosion that set off the avalanche. Return touchdowns, to me, are almost always indictments of the defense more than they are credits to the offense and that was a mistake by Purdue akin to the ultimate bullet to the foot, because the home team had just done something positive prior to the half.
You may not know this, because it hardly matters, but Purdue generated 524 yards - far and away a season high, though many of them were empty garbage time stats - and outgained Northern Illinois by 120. It should be noted that NIU played three quarterbacks, not out of necessity but rather luxury. So at the end, the pedal wasn't exactly to the metal.
Anyway, the point is, Purdue functioned on offense, but came away with little to show for it, because of its own mistakes.
Some weird stats:
Purdue averaged 22 yards for every point it scored Saturday; Northern Illinois averaged 7.3. Northern Illinois gained 113 yards on interception returns.
That aside, how is Purdue going to beat anyone this season if it can't stop anyone. The defense allowed 48 points - far too easily at times, whether it was against the pass in the first half, or the run in the second - and came up with all of zero turnovers.
Enough piling on here.
The original point was that QB was far from the only area Purdue was struggling in, but the time came Saturday, after an atrocious end zone interception, where the time had come.
As we wrote after the Cincinnati game, there are a lot of things you can't question about Rob Henry, whether they be his athleticism, his leadership, his character, but questioning the fit in a pro-style, NFL-inspired system was fair game.
But Purdue was committed to him; the guess here is that sometime in the next two weeks it will similarly commit to Etling from here on out.
He showed flashes, albeit in full-fledged chuck-it mode, which paints a warped picture of reality, but with freshmen, you always have to live through some inconsistencies.
Etling will have time during the bye week to prepare as a starter; conversely, Nebraska will have time to take a long look at him.
But if there was any positive that came from the Northern Illinois game, it was the flashes shown by Etling and the excellent games played by young receivers like DeAngelo Yancey, Cameron Posey and B.J. Knauf. This was the first time this season, to me, where you looked at Purdue's offense and thought saw a group with some legitimate pieces.
But Etling is going to need help if Purdue's going to win games this season.
That front, so often beaten Saturday by a four-man NIU rush, has to be better. Yes, some of those sacks were on the QB, but that's going to be life from here on out, reason to have to be that much better up front. And Purdue has to be able to run the football against the defenses to come that are far better than the one faced this afternoon.
Etling has a long way to go, obviously, but at the very least, he makes things a little more interesting from here on out.
Saturday was a dark day at Purdue. It doesn't get much worse than that.
Would things be better had a coaching change never been made? Saw that brought up during the in-game social media backlash.
I suppose it is conceivable that Purdue might have hit the ground running a little bit without the upheaval from a systematic standpoint, but it's all right there for the eye to see, folks. You could put any coach in college football on that sideline and that's not making that team any bigger, stronger, faster or more talented. It is what it is.
No matter how bad things have gotten over the past month-plus, trust me when I tell you that the Boilermaker program is healthier than it was before.
What results will ultimately come from it, that very much remains to be seen.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2013. 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.
Now that Danny Etling replaced Rob Henry at quarterback, there's no going back.
We know how Darrell Hazell feels about the quarterback position, that he wants one guy to know he has ownership of the position and for the team have the same knowledge.
And the last thing this team needs is that constant question of who'll be taking the next series or even the next snap, for whichever quarterback is in the game to be looking over his shoulder.
So though Hazell wasn't ready to say it just minutes after his team lost 55-24 to Northern Illinois, the team, and maybe the program, will be moving forward with the strong-armed rookie under center, a difficult situation to be in but the reality of the situation nonetheless.
What Saturday's loss to Northern Illinois, which scored more points than any other visiting team in the 89 years football has been played in Ross-Ade Stadium, proved yet again was that quarterback was far from the Boilermakers' only problem.
Jordan Lynch is absolutely outstanding, make no mistake, just like Melvin Gordon last week at Wisconsin.
But defensively, the Boilermakers have had no answer whatsoever.
Part of that is injury, part of it is, just well, how good was Purdue on defense last year, or the year before that, or the year before that?
It is what is, you know?
You can apply that across the board, because this is a roster with a limited ceiling and absolutely no margin for error.
Northern Illinois beat Purdue; Purdue blew itself out.
The turnovers, all five of them, were one thing. The kickoff return was another.
That was the play of the game and the explosion that set off the avalanche. Return touchdowns, to me, are almost always indictments of the defense more than they are credits to the offense and that was a mistake by Purdue akin to the ultimate bullet to the foot, because the home team had just done something positive prior to the half.
You may not know this, because it hardly matters, but Purdue generated 524 yards - far and away a season high, though many of them were empty garbage time stats - and outgained Northern Illinois by 120. It should be noted that NIU played three quarterbacks, not out of necessity but rather luxury. So at the end, the pedal wasn't exactly to the metal.
Anyway, the point is, Purdue functioned on offense, but came away with little to show for it, because of its own mistakes.
Some weird stats:
Purdue averaged 22 yards for every point it scored Saturday; Northern Illinois averaged 7.3. Northern Illinois gained 113 yards on interception returns.
That aside, how is Purdue going to beat anyone this season if it can't stop anyone. The defense allowed 48 points - far too easily at times, whether it was against the pass in the first half, or the run in the second - and came up with all of zero turnovers.
Enough piling on here.
The original point was that QB was far from the only area Purdue was struggling in, but the time came Saturday, after an atrocious end zone interception, where the time had come.
As we wrote after the Cincinnati game, there are a lot of things you can't question about Rob Henry, whether they be his athleticism, his leadership, his character, but questioning the fit in a pro-style, NFL-inspired system was fair game.
But Purdue was committed to him; the guess here is that sometime in the next two weeks it will similarly commit to Etling from here on out.
He showed flashes, albeit in full-fledged chuck-it mode, which paints a warped picture of reality, but with freshmen, you always have to live through some inconsistencies.
Etling will have time during the bye week to prepare as a starter; conversely, Nebraska will have time to take a long look at him.
But if there was any positive that came from the Northern Illinois game, it was the flashes shown by Etling and the excellent games played by young receivers like DeAngelo Yancey, Cameron Posey and B.J. Knauf. This was the first time this season, to me, where you looked at Purdue's offense and thought saw a group with some legitimate pieces.
But Etling is going to need help if Purdue's going to win games this season.
That front, so often beaten Saturday by a four-man NIU rush, has to be better. Yes, some of those sacks were on the QB, but that's going to be life from here on out, reason to have to be that much better up front. And Purdue has to be able to run the football against the defenses to come that are far better than the one faced this afternoon.
Etling has a long way to go, obviously, but at the very least, he makes things a little more interesting from here on out.
Saturday was a dark day at Purdue. It doesn't get much worse than that.
Would things be better had a coaching change never been made? Saw that brought up during the in-game social media backlash.
I suppose it is conceivable that Purdue might have hit the ground running a little bit without the upheaval from a systematic standpoint, but it's all right there for the eye to see, folks. You could put any coach in college football on that sideline and that's not making that team any bigger, stronger, faster or more talented. It is what it is.
No matter how bad things have gotten over the past month-plus, trust me when I tell you that the Boilermaker program is healthier than it was before.
What results will ultimately come from it, that very much remains to be seen.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2013. 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.
