So, Elijah Sindelar took Viktor Beach's snap, faked a handoff to King Doerue, rolled to his right, stopped and looked back left.
The player he was probably looking for, Rondale Moore, had already crumpled to the ground, felled by a leg injury of some kind, the details of which we'll (probably) find more out about in coming days.
But with Moore down, Sindelar had nowhere to throw the ball, so he ran, and was run down, then taken down.
Hard, right on his shoulder, and he's hurt, seemingly badly.
And that was the terrible comedy of that fateful play, that one critical player's injury may have led to another critical player's injury for Purdue. I can't say for certain that one was tied to the other, but it sure looked like it to me.
It doesn't matter. All that matters is Purdue lost its two most important offensive players in one fell swoop while already playing without its two most important defensive players. I've seen bizarre rashes of injuries before at Purdue in my time covering this program, but I don't know if I've ever seen a team lose its four most important players.
Maybe it's just one of those years, where circumstance just wags a finger in your face, I don't know, but I do know that — injury revelations pending — there's a real good chance that painfully short-handed is Purdue's new normal.
I don't know if Elijah Sindelar is coming back any time soon. Usually when a head coach says "probably not good" right after a game, that's, well, probably not good. Rondale Moore, we'll see, but his status for Penn State, one would think, is beyond iffy. Typically when a player stands up, then falls back down, and it's not a cramp, that's often, "probably not good," either. And even if he does come back right away Rondale Moore on a low tire probably isn't Rondale Moore.
Markus Bailey is done. Lorenzo Neal, we'll see.
Again, it might just be one of those seasons, and the 38-31 loss to Minnesota today another step as part of it.
But this is important: Saturday's story was injuries. It just was. I don't want to say the outcome takes a backseat, but for crying out loud, Purdue lost its quarterback and Heisman hopeful on the same freaking play.
But this game was not decided by injuries.
Long before redshirt freshman Jack Plummer and the bevy of freshmen around him — King Doerue, David Bell, Amad Anderson — paced an impressive comeback, Purdue was taken out of this game by its inability to defend the pass.
Tanner Morgan, good quarterback? Yeah, sure he is. He's solid.
Is he Dan Marino? He sure looked like it today.
Back on Oct. 6 of 1998, a little less than 21 years ago, Drew Brees was 31-of-36 for 522 yards and six touchdowns, with no interceptions, against this same Minnesota program. People then called it "the perfect game." Who those people were, I don't remember. I just remember they did.
If that was the perfect game, then what was Morgan's day today? He threw 22 times and only one of them hit the ground. The 21 he completed went for just under 400 yards and were good for four touchdowns, including scores of 70, 47 and 45 yards. His average completion netted 18.9 yards and his average per attempt wasn't far off because, well, there was only one non-completion.
He was nearly flawless.
But of these two games, one was played by one of the great quarterbacks ever to play the game, and the other was played by Tanner Morgan, and that underscores this point: This was part Tanner Morgan, but a bigger part Purdue, because the gaps in its pass defense were robust, its tackling — and angling as it relates to tackling — poor, and this is not a new issue.
We can talk 'til we're blue in the face about the offensive line holding Purdue back, but its inability to stop the pass and its penchant for making pedestrian quarterbacks look Canton-bound isn't far behind.
Saturday's 70-, 47- and 45-yard touchdown passes for Minnesota were the sixth, seventh and eighth touchdown passes of the season against Purdue of 20 or more yards, and there's now been five of 38 or more, two of 70 or more. Giving up such big plays could be rationalized if Purdue was giving them as a tradeoff to turnover generation. Purdue has forced two of those, through 240 minutes of football.
Purdue's got to figure this out. I know Purdue is playing young players at safety, and I know it's most talented players are those younger players, but Saturday, the safeties were exposed front and center as the whole back half of the defense was.
Purdue didn't lose this game because Jack Plummer replaced Elijah Sindelar, or because Rondale Moore was out. Hell, it almost had a chance at the end because of Plummer, who, at risk of overstatement, was terrific in relief, his energy and competitiveness noticeable. If that's the future for Purdue at quarterback, I think you're OK with that, particularly when you take into account how much he seemed to improve in two weeks.
Purdue lost this game simply because it couldn't stop Minnesota, same as it couldn't stop TCU, same as it couldn't stop Nevada when it mattered most.
Purdue's got to figure this out. Nick Holt and Anthony Poindexter and all stakeholders have to figure something out, and so does Jeff Brohm, who's clearly not pleased with his team's pass defense and holds rank over those in charge of it. Because Purdue needs this to improve.
That's just the reality of Saturday, and as Purdue the prospect of the rest of the season — or at least a chunk of it — without more of its stalwart players, it's especially troubling that Purdue's worst enemy on Saturday wasn't even circumstance.
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