Darrell Hazell suggested his team was due for a "break."
And it got at least one break on Saturday despite the fact it did next to nothing to make its own luck.
Sure, Purdue won a game it pretty much had to win, beating Nevada 24-14 in Ross-Ade Stadium, but it did so in spite of itself.
The Boilermakers turned the ball over four times, accounting for all of Nevada's scoring and robbing themselves of two, maybe three, golden scoring opportunities. For good measure, Purdue dropped a bunch of passes and committed too many penalties.
So there Purdue stood with four minutes and pocket change remaining, at the mercy of a short field goal that would have tied a game that the Boilermakers pretty much dominated. It wasn't a good look, and when Hazell let down his guard for a moment to celebrate the Wolf Pack shank, it had to be a moment of satisfaction for the coach, for his players, but also one of tremendous relief, like Purdue was about to walk away from a plane crash unscathed.
Losing this one would have been devastating. It would have been crushing, because Purdue was the better team today, and it's not often been able to say that.
This game had no business hanging in the balance at that late stage, because Purdue's offense was good enough to put up 40 today and its defense was surprisingly, dare I say, dominant. That's not overstating it, either.
There were third-down issues in the first half, sure, but at the end of the day, the Boilermaker defensive line had done Nevada's offensive front the way Godzilla did Tokyo. And a previously potent Nevada running game was thoroughly impotent against a previously helpless-against-the-run Purdue defense. Got all that?
Anyway, letting this one slip away - and again, Nevada snapped on third-and-goal to go ahead with about four-and-a-half minutes left - would have been disastrous.
I don't think Purdue would have made a coaching change this weekend had the Boilermakers lost, but it might have brought some conversations behind closed doors tomorrow. If we can put the job-security question in electoral terms, if Hazell were running for president, he lost Florida two weekends ago and this might have been Ohio and Pennsylvania all at once.
But that's not the point right now. The point is that no matter how flawed this win was, it was a win, and wins are wins no matter the circumstances. And when they don't come around very often - which they haven't around here the past few years - there's not a single one of them that a nose should be stuck up at.
But it is maddening, that a team that has shown some real potential on offense when it's not turning the ball over keeps, yanno, turning the ball over.
Clean up the interceptions and David Blough is pretty much where you want him to be. One throw aside, he was terrific today. And Markell Jones is legit as long as Purdue can keep him out of the ICU. So is DeAngelo Yancey and now Domonique Young. Purdue has some pieces on offense. The offensive tackle issue is a lit firecracker waiting to blow one of these weeks, but Purdue survived it for at least one week.
If Purdue can just correct the turnover issue and get the defense to the point where its best moments are the norm as opposed to not, then there is some reason to believe that this team can be competitive. Is 'competitive' what it should be striving for at this point? No, but you have to start somewhere.
That's a lot of ifs, though, and the game does change now that Big Ten play starts. The bye week brought some healing after the Cincinnati debacle but Purdue has still only played three very pedestrian opponents and not left its homefield.
But Purdue has shown some flashes, a bunch of them today in fact, making it even more maddening that it had even had to sweat this one out.
And it got at least one break on Saturday despite the fact it did next to nothing to make its own luck.
Sure, Purdue won a game it pretty much had to win, beating Nevada 24-14 in Ross-Ade Stadium, but it did so in spite of itself.
The Boilermakers turned the ball over four times, accounting for all of Nevada's scoring and robbing themselves of two, maybe three, golden scoring opportunities. For good measure, Purdue dropped a bunch of passes and committed too many penalties.
So there Purdue stood with four minutes and pocket change remaining, at the mercy of a short field goal that would have tied a game that the Boilermakers pretty much dominated. It wasn't a good look, and when Hazell let down his guard for a moment to celebrate the Wolf Pack shank, it had to be a moment of satisfaction for the coach, for his players, but also one of tremendous relief, like Purdue was about to walk away from a plane crash unscathed.
Losing this one would have been devastating. It would have been crushing, because Purdue was the better team today, and it's not often been able to say that.
This game had no business hanging in the balance at that late stage, because Purdue's offense was good enough to put up 40 today and its defense was surprisingly, dare I say, dominant. That's not overstating it, either.
There were third-down issues in the first half, sure, but at the end of the day, the Boilermaker defensive line had done Nevada's offensive front the way Godzilla did Tokyo. And a previously potent Nevada running game was thoroughly impotent against a previously helpless-against-the-run Purdue defense. Got all that?
Anyway, letting this one slip away - and again, Nevada snapped on third-and-goal to go ahead with about four-and-a-half minutes left - would have been disastrous.
I don't think Purdue would have made a coaching change this weekend had the Boilermakers lost, but it might have brought some conversations behind closed doors tomorrow. If we can put the job-security question in electoral terms, if Hazell were running for president, he lost Florida two weekends ago and this might have been Ohio and Pennsylvania all at once.
But that's not the point right now. The point is that no matter how flawed this win was, it was a win, and wins are wins no matter the circumstances. And when they don't come around very often - which they haven't around here the past few years - there's not a single one of them that a nose should be stuck up at.
But it is maddening, that a team that has shown some real potential on offense when it's not turning the ball over keeps, yanno, turning the ball over.
Clean up the interceptions and David Blough is pretty much where you want him to be. One throw aside, he was terrific today. And Markell Jones is legit as long as Purdue can keep him out of the ICU. So is DeAngelo Yancey and now Domonique Young. Purdue has some pieces on offense. The offensive tackle issue is a lit firecracker waiting to blow one of these weeks, but Purdue survived it for at least one week.
If Purdue can just correct the turnover issue and get the defense to the point where its best moments are the norm as opposed to not, then there is some reason to believe that this team can be competitive. Is 'competitive' what it should be striving for at this point? No, but you have to start somewhere.
That's a lot of ifs, though, and the game does change now that Big Ten play starts. The bye week brought some healing after the Cincinnati debacle but Purdue has still only played three very pedestrian opponents and not left its homefield.
But Purdue has shown some flashes, a bunch of them today in fact, making it even more maddening that it had even had to sweat this one out.
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