Taking a look at the size and experience of the Bowling Green lines and LBs and seeing how they match up against Purdue's equivalents.
- Purdue’s defense will face a Bowling Green O-line which will be typical of units using a up-tempo spread offense (e.g. a little smaller) coming in at 299.6 lbs. This is about 4 lbs per man smaller than the average B10 line this season. They also come in as one of the lesser experienced groups at 2.8 years of experience. Again, this is below average compared to a B10 line. While not as experienced in terms of years, they are very experienced in term s of start as all five starters return from last year. The Falcon line will have 126 collective starts as a unit which I believe leads the nation. One of their linemen had to leave their game Saturday and his status isn’t known at this time.
- This year’s Purdue’s D-Line (Panfil, Replogle, Watson, Robinson) averages about 271.3 lbs, down about 4lbs from the 275 lbs average from last year. They will be outweighed by the Falcoln line by about 22.5 lbs per man on average. Purdue’s average experience is 3.00 years, identical to last year’s line when two Seniors started at DE. The size of this group will be below average for a B10 team and also slightly below average in terms of experience. As a unit they are very untested as going into Saturday they have 28 collective starts. .
- Purdue’s LBs (Ezechukwu, Bentley, Herman) come in at 245.3 lbs but only 2.33 years of experience. That’s up over 3.0 lbs from last year and the collective experience is the same as the start of last year when Sean Robinson started in the middle. Though young, they have a collective 36 starts between them. Size wise, this group is one of the largest in the B10 but experience wise, they fall on the other side of the ledger and are tied for the youngest in the B10 (Nebraska, Minnesota).
- Purdue’s O-line (Hedelin, King, Kugler, Roos, Cermin) will average 302.0 lbs per man, down by 2.8 lbs from last year’s 304.8 lbs. This places them slightly below average in the B10. They average 3.40 years of experience which is (finally) slightly above average for the B10 where in prior years they have been one of the youngest lines in the B10. Collectively, this group has 95 starts among them. Kugler has the lion’s share (33) of those starts by himself. The start totals also don’t include Hedelin’s while he was a JUCO.
- At 283.0lbs, Bowling Green’s D-line will be one of the larger D-Lines Purdue is scheduled to face this year. They do swap out some of their starting interior linemen to “bulk up” if you will for bigger teams and these numbers represent that larger alignment. They will be well above average in terms of experience however with a 3.50 year average. They’ll be outweighed by Purdue’s O-line by 19.0lbs per man. They return two starters from last year and have a collective 33 starts between them. This is a line which gave up a lot of rushing yards last season and seems to have picked up right where they left off.
- The Falcoln LBs comes in also on the smaller side at 211.0 lbs. and are well below average for teams Purdue will face this year. In fact they are scheduled to be the smallest group of LBs that Purdue will face by a large margin (12 lbs). They do have decent experience with an average of 3.00 years at the position which puts them slightly above average compared to a B10 team and to any of Purdue’s opponents. Together they have 18 starts with one starter returning from last season. So, while they have good experience in terms of years in the program, they have not accumulated that many starts. One thing that is particularly unusual about this group, and the front 7 in general, is that they are relatively short. Two players on the line (a DE and DT are both listed as 5’10” and none of the LBs are over 6’1” with one at 5’9” and a second at 6’0 even)
With one non-conference game remaining, Purdue’s backs are against the wall and are in desperate need of a win to even out their record before going into league play. Bowling Green also comes in at 1-2 but has already knocked off Big 10 foe Maryland two weeks ago and would like nothing more than to do the same to Purdue. They will be busing students to the game in anticipation of that win.
Sagarin is predicting a 3.92 point Purdue loss
Vegas opened up with Purdue a 2 point favorite but at one time swung to a 2.5 point underdog and now, with the insertion of Blough at QB, is anywhere from a -1 to a Pick-Em game.
Compughter Ratings.com predicts a 34-35 Purdue loss
CollegeFootballPoll predicts a 5.75 point Purdue loss
MasseyRatings predicts a 35-34 Purdue win
Following Purdue’s opening game loss to Marshall, their confidence had to be shaken. Following last Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech, their confidence could be shattered into a million pieces. Purdue’s only chance in that game was to play clean, not turn the ball over (and not give up special teams/defensive points) and make Virginia Tech do what they didn’t want to do. Purdue pretty much did none of that. While the final score was somewhat indicative of Purdue’s desperation in the 2nd half (Virginia Tech’s average drive start was on the Purdue 44 yard line), it’s inability to generate offense against a stifling defense ultimately is what doomed this game.
That won’t be the case this week. As good as VT is on defense, that’s how bad Bowling Green is. After three games, their rankings in Total Defense, Rushing Defense, Pass Efficiency Defense, Socring Defense, 3rd Down Defense, 4th Down Defense and Red Zone Defense are all in the triple digits (100+ out of 127 teams). Only Passing Yards Allowed at 97th falls outside that range. In fact, their special teams aren’t all that special either. They are 101st in Net Punting and 106th in Kickoff Return Defense. What’s more they are 123rd in Kickoff Returns and 71st in Punt Returns.
Of course, there is another side of the coin and that is their offense. Bowling Green comes in with the #1 Passing Offense, #2 Total Offense, 22nd in Pass Efficiency and 29th in Scoring Offense. Their QB, Johnson, who returned from a broken hip which kept him out of all of last season, has thrown for no less than 424 yards in each of Bowling Green’s three games. He’s completing his passes at a 61.5% clip with 12 TDs and only one INT for the year. He’s an experienced QB and is very good at looking off receivers to get defensive players out of position.
If there’s a chink in the armor, there are a couple of stats which seem to be an anomaly or of something which could be exploited by Purdue and those are Bowling Green’s 3rd Down Conversion Percentage (37.3%) which ranks 83rd nationally and their Red Zone Offense ranking which is 116th (66.7%).
After reviewing each of their games, it’s pretty clear that Bowling Green wants to score by getting one-on-one matchups and going deep. To do so, not only do they have a QB who’s fairly accurate with the long ball but also have a couple of outside receivers in Dieter (6’3” 207lb R-JR out of South Bend Washington) and Lewis (6’0 199lb Soph) who are both good with the 50-50 ball. They also have a TE sized WR in Gallon (6’4” 246 R-SR) who’s a frequent target in the red zone. To top off their receiving corps is Ronnie Moore, a 5’9” Junior out of Florida.
As Bowling Green has several slot/inside receivers that are also very talented, I’d expect Purdue to at least initially try and challenge Lewis and Dieter with one-on-one coverage with Brown and Williams. Purdue has to get a good rush on their QB, Johnson, so he doesn’t have the time to dial in on those long passes (of which he’s extremely accurate).
Coach Dino Babers (Assistant at Purdue from 91-93) uses tempo like an orchestra conductor to keep defenses off balance. Sometimes that does have a detrimental effect as Bowling Green is last in the nation (#127th) in Penalty Yards per game. Babers has no problem going on 4th down regardless of the field position and it is going to be imperative for Purdue to play each and every down at full speed. They need to treat a 3rd and 20 play the same as a 3rd and 2. If the game clock is winding down, they can’t relax as Bowling Green will snap the ball at the last moment to take advantage of that temporary relaxation. If there was ever a game when they need to finish, this is it.
Bowling Green also seems to have a pass option on every play. What might look like a simple read option can turn into a pass play to a WR or the TE in an instant. One of their better looking plays is when Johnson starts to the right with his TB in position to take a pitch but their TE is also pulling from the left side of the line. Johnson has the option to run, to pitch to the TB or execute a shovel pass to the TE. All three options have worked for Bowling Green this season.
One tendency that Bowling Green’s OC seems to have is that on plays where he’s expecting pressure (3rd and longs particularly), 9 times out of 10 he’ll call for a draw or screen play. I hope Coach Hudson has taken notice.
Unlike the other three QBs that Purdue has faced, Johnson isn’t expected to run much, but he will keep the ball just enough to keep Purdue honest. When he does run, he’s pretty quick and efficient but Bowling Green would prefer him to pass. Another note about Johnson is that he also isn’t very tall (listed at 6’0”) so the D-line will be well advised to get their hands in the air when they can’t reach the QB with their rush. Johnson’s had a good number of passes batted down at the line this season as a result.
Like most QB’s, Johnson’s accuracy drops when he has to scramble and he’s a bit easier to take down being a smaller player. All three of their opponents (Tennessee, Maryland and Memphis) did well when they could get pressure from just their front four (or 3) D-linemen, and even with Bowling Green’s experience along the O-line, they were able to do so fairly frequently. This could be a game for Purdue’s DEs (Mills and Robinson) to shine.
While the 51 points put up by VT doesn’t look good for Purdue’s defense, about 24 of those weren’t due to the defense alone but were a result of turnovers and special teams. Further complicating the issue is that with the offense unable to move the ball and turning the ball over on downs inside Purdue’s territory, Purdue’s defense was simply on the field too much and didn’t have much field to defend when VT took over.
That said, outside of the fumble recovery and return, Purdue’s defense didn’t help themselves all that much. Two passes were dropped which, if intercepted, could have helped to put Purdue’s offense in a better position and caused VT to become more run-oriented. Purdue also wasn’t able to get any penetration along the line to disrupt VT’s offense, thus seemingly every play was a minimum 3-5 yard gain for VT. Throw in a heavy dose of missed tackles and the die was cast for a Purdue loss.
This week, not only will they be physically tested but mentally as well. Bowling Green is going to gain yards, they are going to have big plays and they are going to score, probably often. Purdue is going to have to stay mentally sharp each and every down to minimize the damage and also will need to have some “amnesia” and quickly forget about those scores and be ready to come out and challenge Bowling Green the next time on the field.
Brown and Williams will have their work cut out for them but so will Gregory. If Gregory has been frequently out of position, I’d be inclined to go with Roberts as Johnson will make even a misstep costly for the defense. I think Purdue will also need to use their Nickel more frequently than they’ve done so recently.
Still, the key is to mix up what Johnson sees and try and make him see something that isn’t there. Easier said than done.
One area where the defense has done well all year is in creating turnovers. After getting three in each of the first two game, they only ended up with a single turnover against VT (it was a big one, though). They did force at least one other fumble and had their hands on two errant passes, they just need to corral a few more of them. Bowling Green has only thrown one Interception so far this season so, like so many other aspects, they’ll have their work cut out for them this week.
In some ways, I’m reminded of the 2012 team and when Marshall came to town for the 4th game of that season. Marshall’s offense was running at a clip similar to what Bowling Green is doing this year:
Marshall 2012
Pass Offense - #1
Rush Offense - #52
Total Offense - #7
Pass Efficiency - #34
Scoring Offense - #16
Cato – 2 Interceptions in 200 attempts
Bowling Green 2015
Pass Offense - #1
Rush Offense - #93
Total Offense - #2
Pass Efficiency - #22
Scoring Offense - #29
Johnson – 1 Interception in 148 attempts
Williams and Brown both played in the game with Williams getting the start as Purdue came out in their Nickel defense. Purdue got three interceptions off of Cato that day taking two of them back for scores.
On the flip side of the coin, let’s take a look at both of those team’s defenses:
Marshall 2012
Pass Defense - #97
Rush Defense - #112
Total Defense - #117
Pass Efficiency Defense - #92
Scoring Defense - #118
Bowling Green 2015
Pass Defense - #97
Rush Defense - #116
Total Defense - #114
Pass Efficiency Defense - #110
Scoring Defense - #120
Almost an exact match. Purdue of course, led by Caleb TerBush and his 27 of 37, 293 yards and 4 TD performance led handily at halftime and then eased off the gas to allow Marshall to get back into the game before winning 51-41.
Not saying the exact thing will happen again this Saturday but there a lot of similarities with the teams coming in.
Purdue’s offense should be able to get back to its comfort zone this week. Bowling Green’s defense is a bit undersized up the middle and the Boilers should be able to run Knox and Jones between the tackles against their 7 man fronts. Bowling Green will drop a Safety down to try and stop the run and in those cases, Blough is going to have open receivers. Play action passes should be very effective this week.
While undersized, Bowling Green’s defense is fairly quick and so far this season has shown good ability to get to the ball on slow developing plays and even quicker plays to the outside (bubble screens, etc.). Again, Purdue should probably utilize a straight forward, quick hitting running game until Bowling Green drops in that extra man.
One thing where Bowling Green’s defense is potentially susceptible is on misdirection plays. They don’t seem to have good eye discipline which can lead them out of position. They’ve also shown a propensity to jump off sides with a hard count. Again, not using good eye discipline.
As mentioned last week, I’d again like to see Purdue utilize Herdman more often as a primary receiver. He’s shown the ability to catch the passes which have been thrown to him so far (at least by my recollection) and would make a good “safety valve” and a target across the middle or up the seam.
While play calling and some personnel groupings last week were “curious” at best, I’m not sure I need to see Burgess trying to catch slant passes at this stage of his career. I understand having him in the game earlier to set up the end around against VT but his hands just don’t seem to be reliable enough for critical situations. For that matter, only Anthrop seemed to bring his hands in last week’s game. In addition to Burgess, Young and Yancy all had drops which if caught would have extended drives. Purdue wasn’t winning the 50-50 balls and lost some 0-100 balls as well.
Speaking of Burgess, with Bowling Green’s issues on giving up big returns off of Kickoffs and Punts, perhaps a better place him is as a returner. Again, don’t know about his hands and if he’s prone to fumble but he’d be tough to bring down with his size and tough to catch in the open field with his speed.
All in all, this should be a good week for Blough to get his feet wet running the Offense and get some confidence in doing so. Purdue should be able to keep a good pocket with what has been a week Bowling Green rush. Bowling Green hasn’t been terribly adept this season at getting to the opposing QB ranking 101st in Sacks. Assuming Purdue can establish the running game again the shorter play-action passes should also be available most of the game. If they’ll throw to them, both Posey and Herdman could have good games. While Purdue hasn’t shown a tendency to roll out the pocket, with Blough’s mobility, that might be an option.
I’d expect Bowling Green to try and test Blough to see how much of the offense he’s capable of executing. They may change up their typical MO and bring pressure or may stack the box to stop the run from the outset and make Blough show he can beat them with his arm. As always, it’s going to be critical that Blough take what the defense gives him and try not to turn the ball over. Purdue is going to need every scoring chance it can get on Saturday and can’t afford to waste a single drive.
Purdue was able to respond positively once this season after a crushing loss, we’ll see if they can do it again. Perhaps one thing in their favor is the start time. Purdue’s 0-2 when the kickoff has been after 3:00pm and 1-0 when the kickoff is at Noon. Saturday’s game kicks off at Noon.
Purdue is 0-2 all time against Bowling Green, losing at Ross-Ade the last time they faced in 2003 on a last second TD by an Urban Meyer led squad. Both times the teams played, the Boilers were ranked in the Top 25, that’s something they obviously won’t have to worry about Saturday.
Saturday can’t get here quick enough so I can hopefully get the taste of last week’s game out of my mouth. I’m looking forward to see Blough get his shot and show what we all hope he’s capable of doing.
- Purdue’s defense will face a Bowling Green O-line which will be typical of units using a up-tempo spread offense (e.g. a little smaller) coming in at 299.6 lbs. This is about 4 lbs per man smaller than the average B10 line this season. They also come in as one of the lesser experienced groups at 2.8 years of experience. Again, this is below average compared to a B10 line. While not as experienced in terms of years, they are very experienced in term s of start as all five starters return from last year. The Falcon line will have 126 collective starts as a unit which I believe leads the nation. One of their linemen had to leave their game Saturday and his status isn’t known at this time.
- This year’s Purdue’s D-Line (Panfil, Replogle, Watson, Robinson) averages about 271.3 lbs, down about 4lbs from the 275 lbs average from last year. They will be outweighed by the Falcoln line by about 22.5 lbs per man on average. Purdue’s average experience is 3.00 years, identical to last year’s line when two Seniors started at DE. The size of this group will be below average for a B10 team and also slightly below average in terms of experience. As a unit they are very untested as going into Saturday they have 28 collective starts. .
- Purdue’s LBs (Ezechukwu, Bentley, Herman) come in at 245.3 lbs but only 2.33 years of experience. That’s up over 3.0 lbs from last year and the collective experience is the same as the start of last year when Sean Robinson started in the middle. Though young, they have a collective 36 starts between them. Size wise, this group is one of the largest in the B10 but experience wise, they fall on the other side of the ledger and are tied for the youngest in the B10 (Nebraska, Minnesota).
- Purdue’s O-line (Hedelin, King, Kugler, Roos, Cermin) will average 302.0 lbs per man, down by 2.8 lbs from last year’s 304.8 lbs. This places them slightly below average in the B10. They average 3.40 years of experience which is (finally) slightly above average for the B10 where in prior years they have been one of the youngest lines in the B10. Collectively, this group has 95 starts among them. Kugler has the lion’s share (33) of those starts by himself. The start totals also don’t include Hedelin’s while he was a JUCO.
- At 283.0lbs, Bowling Green’s D-line will be one of the larger D-Lines Purdue is scheduled to face this year. They do swap out some of their starting interior linemen to “bulk up” if you will for bigger teams and these numbers represent that larger alignment. They will be well above average in terms of experience however with a 3.50 year average. They’ll be outweighed by Purdue’s O-line by 19.0lbs per man. They return two starters from last year and have a collective 33 starts between them. This is a line which gave up a lot of rushing yards last season and seems to have picked up right where they left off.
- The Falcoln LBs comes in also on the smaller side at 211.0 lbs. and are well below average for teams Purdue will face this year. In fact they are scheduled to be the smallest group of LBs that Purdue will face by a large margin (12 lbs). They do have decent experience with an average of 3.00 years at the position which puts them slightly above average compared to a B10 team and to any of Purdue’s opponents. Together they have 18 starts with one starter returning from last season. So, while they have good experience in terms of years in the program, they have not accumulated that many starts. One thing that is particularly unusual about this group, and the front 7 in general, is that they are relatively short. Two players on the line (a DE and DT are both listed as 5’10” and none of the LBs are over 6’1” with one at 5’9” and a second at 6’0 even)
With one non-conference game remaining, Purdue’s backs are against the wall and are in desperate need of a win to even out their record before going into league play. Bowling Green also comes in at 1-2 but has already knocked off Big 10 foe Maryland two weeks ago and would like nothing more than to do the same to Purdue. They will be busing students to the game in anticipation of that win.
Sagarin is predicting a 3.92 point Purdue loss
Vegas opened up with Purdue a 2 point favorite but at one time swung to a 2.5 point underdog and now, with the insertion of Blough at QB, is anywhere from a -1 to a Pick-Em game.
Compughter Ratings.com predicts a 34-35 Purdue loss
CollegeFootballPoll predicts a 5.75 point Purdue loss
MasseyRatings predicts a 35-34 Purdue win
Following Purdue’s opening game loss to Marshall, their confidence had to be shaken. Following last Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech, their confidence could be shattered into a million pieces. Purdue’s only chance in that game was to play clean, not turn the ball over (and not give up special teams/defensive points) and make Virginia Tech do what they didn’t want to do. Purdue pretty much did none of that. While the final score was somewhat indicative of Purdue’s desperation in the 2nd half (Virginia Tech’s average drive start was on the Purdue 44 yard line), it’s inability to generate offense against a stifling defense ultimately is what doomed this game.
That won’t be the case this week. As good as VT is on defense, that’s how bad Bowling Green is. After three games, their rankings in Total Defense, Rushing Defense, Pass Efficiency Defense, Socring Defense, 3rd Down Defense, 4th Down Defense and Red Zone Defense are all in the triple digits (100+ out of 127 teams). Only Passing Yards Allowed at 97th falls outside that range. In fact, their special teams aren’t all that special either. They are 101st in Net Punting and 106th in Kickoff Return Defense. What’s more they are 123rd in Kickoff Returns and 71st in Punt Returns.
Of course, there is another side of the coin and that is their offense. Bowling Green comes in with the #1 Passing Offense, #2 Total Offense, 22nd in Pass Efficiency and 29th in Scoring Offense. Their QB, Johnson, who returned from a broken hip which kept him out of all of last season, has thrown for no less than 424 yards in each of Bowling Green’s three games. He’s completing his passes at a 61.5% clip with 12 TDs and only one INT for the year. He’s an experienced QB and is very good at looking off receivers to get defensive players out of position.
If there’s a chink in the armor, there are a couple of stats which seem to be an anomaly or of something which could be exploited by Purdue and those are Bowling Green’s 3rd Down Conversion Percentage (37.3%) which ranks 83rd nationally and their Red Zone Offense ranking which is 116th (66.7%).
After reviewing each of their games, it’s pretty clear that Bowling Green wants to score by getting one-on-one matchups and going deep. To do so, not only do they have a QB who’s fairly accurate with the long ball but also have a couple of outside receivers in Dieter (6’3” 207lb R-JR out of South Bend Washington) and Lewis (6’0 199lb Soph) who are both good with the 50-50 ball. They also have a TE sized WR in Gallon (6’4” 246 R-SR) who’s a frequent target in the red zone. To top off their receiving corps is Ronnie Moore, a 5’9” Junior out of Florida.
As Bowling Green has several slot/inside receivers that are also very talented, I’d expect Purdue to at least initially try and challenge Lewis and Dieter with one-on-one coverage with Brown and Williams. Purdue has to get a good rush on their QB, Johnson, so he doesn’t have the time to dial in on those long passes (of which he’s extremely accurate).
Coach Dino Babers (Assistant at Purdue from 91-93) uses tempo like an orchestra conductor to keep defenses off balance. Sometimes that does have a detrimental effect as Bowling Green is last in the nation (#127th) in Penalty Yards per game. Babers has no problem going on 4th down regardless of the field position and it is going to be imperative for Purdue to play each and every down at full speed. They need to treat a 3rd and 20 play the same as a 3rd and 2. If the game clock is winding down, they can’t relax as Bowling Green will snap the ball at the last moment to take advantage of that temporary relaxation. If there was ever a game when they need to finish, this is it.
Bowling Green also seems to have a pass option on every play. What might look like a simple read option can turn into a pass play to a WR or the TE in an instant. One of their better looking plays is when Johnson starts to the right with his TB in position to take a pitch but their TE is also pulling from the left side of the line. Johnson has the option to run, to pitch to the TB or execute a shovel pass to the TE. All three options have worked for Bowling Green this season.
One tendency that Bowling Green’s OC seems to have is that on plays where he’s expecting pressure (3rd and longs particularly), 9 times out of 10 he’ll call for a draw or screen play. I hope Coach Hudson has taken notice.
Unlike the other three QBs that Purdue has faced, Johnson isn’t expected to run much, but he will keep the ball just enough to keep Purdue honest. When he does run, he’s pretty quick and efficient but Bowling Green would prefer him to pass. Another note about Johnson is that he also isn’t very tall (listed at 6’0”) so the D-line will be well advised to get their hands in the air when they can’t reach the QB with their rush. Johnson’s had a good number of passes batted down at the line this season as a result.
Like most QB’s, Johnson’s accuracy drops when he has to scramble and he’s a bit easier to take down being a smaller player. All three of their opponents (Tennessee, Maryland and Memphis) did well when they could get pressure from just their front four (or 3) D-linemen, and even with Bowling Green’s experience along the O-line, they were able to do so fairly frequently. This could be a game for Purdue’s DEs (Mills and Robinson) to shine.
While the 51 points put up by VT doesn’t look good for Purdue’s defense, about 24 of those weren’t due to the defense alone but were a result of turnovers and special teams. Further complicating the issue is that with the offense unable to move the ball and turning the ball over on downs inside Purdue’s territory, Purdue’s defense was simply on the field too much and didn’t have much field to defend when VT took over.
That said, outside of the fumble recovery and return, Purdue’s defense didn’t help themselves all that much. Two passes were dropped which, if intercepted, could have helped to put Purdue’s offense in a better position and caused VT to become more run-oriented. Purdue also wasn’t able to get any penetration along the line to disrupt VT’s offense, thus seemingly every play was a minimum 3-5 yard gain for VT. Throw in a heavy dose of missed tackles and the die was cast for a Purdue loss.
This week, not only will they be physically tested but mentally as well. Bowling Green is going to gain yards, they are going to have big plays and they are going to score, probably often. Purdue is going to have to stay mentally sharp each and every down to minimize the damage and also will need to have some “amnesia” and quickly forget about those scores and be ready to come out and challenge Bowling Green the next time on the field.
Brown and Williams will have their work cut out for them but so will Gregory. If Gregory has been frequently out of position, I’d be inclined to go with Roberts as Johnson will make even a misstep costly for the defense. I think Purdue will also need to use their Nickel more frequently than they’ve done so recently.
Still, the key is to mix up what Johnson sees and try and make him see something that isn’t there. Easier said than done.
One area where the defense has done well all year is in creating turnovers. After getting three in each of the first two game, they only ended up with a single turnover against VT (it was a big one, though). They did force at least one other fumble and had their hands on two errant passes, they just need to corral a few more of them. Bowling Green has only thrown one Interception so far this season so, like so many other aspects, they’ll have their work cut out for them this week.
In some ways, I’m reminded of the 2012 team and when Marshall came to town for the 4th game of that season. Marshall’s offense was running at a clip similar to what Bowling Green is doing this year:
Marshall 2012
Pass Offense - #1
Rush Offense - #52
Total Offense - #7
Pass Efficiency - #34
Scoring Offense - #16
Cato – 2 Interceptions in 200 attempts
Bowling Green 2015
Pass Offense - #1
Rush Offense - #93
Total Offense - #2
Pass Efficiency - #22
Scoring Offense - #29
Johnson – 1 Interception in 148 attempts
Williams and Brown both played in the game with Williams getting the start as Purdue came out in their Nickel defense. Purdue got three interceptions off of Cato that day taking two of them back for scores.
On the flip side of the coin, let’s take a look at both of those team’s defenses:
Marshall 2012
Pass Defense - #97
Rush Defense - #112
Total Defense - #117
Pass Efficiency Defense - #92
Scoring Defense - #118
Bowling Green 2015
Pass Defense - #97
Rush Defense - #116
Total Defense - #114
Pass Efficiency Defense - #110
Scoring Defense - #120
Almost an exact match. Purdue of course, led by Caleb TerBush and his 27 of 37, 293 yards and 4 TD performance led handily at halftime and then eased off the gas to allow Marshall to get back into the game before winning 51-41.
Not saying the exact thing will happen again this Saturday but there a lot of similarities with the teams coming in.
Purdue’s offense should be able to get back to its comfort zone this week. Bowling Green’s defense is a bit undersized up the middle and the Boilers should be able to run Knox and Jones between the tackles against their 7 man fronts. Bowling Green will drop a Safety down to try and stop the run and in those cases, Blough is going to have open receivers. Play action passes should be very effective this week.
While undersized, Bowling Green’s defense is fairly quick and so far this season has shown good ability to get to the ball on slow developing plays and even quicker plays to the outside (bubble screens, etc.). Again, Purdue should probably utilize a straight forward, quick hitting running game until Bowling Green drops in that extra man.
One thing where Bowling Green’s defense is potentially susceptible is on misdirection plays. They don’t seem to have good eye discipline which can lead them out of position. They’ve also shown a propensity to jump off sides with a hard count. Again, not using good eye discipline.
As mentioned last week, I’d again like to see Purdue utilize Herdman more often as a primary receiver. He’s shown the ability to catch the passes which have been thrown to him so far (at least by my recollection) and would make a good “safety valve” and a target across the middle or up the seam.
While play calling and some personnel groupings last week were “curious” at best, I’m not sure I need to see Burgess trying to catch slant passes at this stage of his career. I understand having him in the game earlier to set up the end around against VT but his hands just don’t seem to be reliable enough for critical situations. For that matter, only Anthrop seemed to bring his hands in last week’s game. In addition to Burgess, Young and Yancy all had drops which if caught would have extended drives. Purdue wasn’t winning the 50-50 balls and lost some 0-100 balls as well.
Speaking of Burgess, with Bowling Green’s issues on giving up big returns off of Kickoffs and Punts, perhaps a better place him is as a returner. Again, don’t know about his hands and if he’s prone to fumble but he’d be tough to bring down with his size and tough to catch in the open field with his speed.
All in all, this should be a good week for Blough to get his feet wet running the Offense and get some confidence in doing so. Purdue should be able to keep a good pocket with what has been a week Bowling Green rush. Bowling Green hasn’t been terribly adept this season at getting to the opposing QB ranking 101st in Sacks. Assuming Purdue can establish the running game again the shorter play-action passes should also be available most of the game. If they’ll throw to them, both Posey and Herdman could have good games. While Purdue hasn’t shown a tendency to roll out the pocket, with Blough’s mobility, that might be an option.
I’d expect Bowling Green to try and test Blough to see how much of the offense he’s capable of executing. They may change up their typical MO and bring pressure or may stack the box to stop the run from the outset and make Blough show he can beat them with his arm. As always, it’s going to be critical that Blough take what the defense gives him and try not to turn the ball over. Purdue is going to need every scoring chance it can get on Saturday and can’t afford to waste a single drive.
Purdue was able to respond positively once this season after a crushing loss, we’ll see if they can do it again. Perhaps one thing in their favor is the start time. Purdue’s 0-2 when the kickoff has been after 3:00pm and 1-0 when the kickoff is at Noon. Saturday’s game kicks off at Noon.
Purdue is 0-2 all time against Bowling Green, losing at Ross-Ade the last time they faced in 2003 on a last second TD by an Urban Meyer led squad. Both times the teams played, the Boilers were ranked in the Top 25, that’s something they obviously won’t have to worry about Saturday.
Saturday can’t get here quick enough so I can hopefully get the taste of last week’s game out of my mouth. I’m looking forward to see Blough get his shot and show what we all hope he’s capable of doing.
