Next up, after two night games, a more traditional noon kickoff with Nebraska on Saturday.
Taking a look at the size and experience of the Nebraska Lines and LBs and seeing how they match up against Purdue's equivalents (Note: Purdue has not released a 2-deep so the numbers are based on prior starters with some additions/subtraction guesses in injury/suspension situations).
- Breaking the trend of alternating small then large OLs, Purdue is facing Small in back to back weeks. The Nebraska line is coming in at 303.0 lbs. They are well below average in terms of size and in experience for any Purdue opponent at 2.4 years of experience. Even though they are not old as a group, the players collectively have a very good 96 starts between them. Nebraska actually returned all five starters from last year’s line but two of them (Hixson & Wilson) have been supplanted as starters however at least Wilson is still getting regular reps. Last year’s RT, Farniok, has moved inside to guard.
- This week’s Purdue’s projected D-Line (Sullivan, Neal, Deen, Mitchell) averages about 286.3lbs, up 18.8lbs from last year’s 267.5 lbs. They will be outweighed by the Nebraska line by about 13.7lbs per man on average. Purdue’s average experience is 2.75 years, up a half year from last year’s line. The size of this group is right at the average for a B10 team. The unit is well below average in terms of experience. As a unit they have 39 collective starts not counting Mitchell’s JUCO experience.
- Purdue’s projected LBs (Graham, Fakasiieiki, Alexander) come in at 225.0 lbs, equal to last year and are at 3.00 years of experience, up from 2.33 last season. They have a collective 29 starts between them. Size wise, this group is below the average for the B10 and all opponents but well below the average in terms of experience. The loss of Barnes for the 1st half of the game hurts. I’m guessing about Fakasiieiki starting in his place.
- Purdue’s projected O-line (Hermanns, Holstege, Garvin, Hartwig, Long) will average 301.0 lbs per man, up by 4 lbs from last year’s 297.0 lbs. While much improved, Purdue's size is still going to be well below average compared to the rest of the B10 and other Purdue opponents, but slightly below the mean (Minnesota, IU and Wisconsin skew the average). They average 2.6 years of experience, up from last season’s 2.4 years. Purdue started Hartwig over Washington (who replaced Jornigan) against Minnesota which drops the size and experience down a bit. With that change, their experience puts them well below the B10 average. Collectively, they are still young in years for an O-line and it shows in the number of starts, with 55 (Long’s 11 UTEP starts not included). Starting out last season, this group had 51 starts but they were concentrated in McCann (36) and Hermanns (15) so Purdue should be better this season and I believe that’s been born out.
- Nebraska features a 3 man front. As with other teams, we count the largest OLB as a DE for these calculations. At 302.5 lbs, Nebraska’s D-line is easily the largest in the B10 and roughly 9lbs per man larger than Illinois’, the next biggest in the league. They will however be very below average in terms of experience with a 2.5 year average. A single starter returns from last season. They’re essentially the same weight per man as Purdue’s O-line being outweighed by 0.5 lbs per man. With the new starters they’ll have just 32 starts between them. The size of just the three DL (not including the OLB) is about 317lbs per man. Size-wise, this is probably what Purdue should aim for. Purdue by comparison, is closer to 292lbs per man per listed weights.
- Unlike the large D-Line, the Nebraska LBs come in slightly below average in size for the B10 and for Purdue’s opponents at 226.67 lbs,. The position is stocked with two Seniors so they come in right at the B10 average in terms of experience with 3.33 years at the position. Like the D-Line, a single starter returns from last year and this group will have 20 starts between them. Missing from the lineup is former Purdue recruit and Fisher’s native Colin Miller, who suffered a spinal injury two weeks ago against Illinois. Miller was an anchor on the Nebraska defense and his absence on the field will be missed. He made an appearance on the sidelines last week in Nebraska’s game against Iowa and it’s likely he’ll make the trip to West Lafayette for sideline support.
Vegas predicts Purdue by 2.0 points (Opened up as a Purdue -1)
MasseyRatings predicts a 30-27 Purdue win
Sagarin predicts a 0.61 point Purdue win
EigenVector Analysis predicts Purdue by 5.83 with a 66% confidence factor
CollegeFootballPoll predicts a 3.75 Purdue win
For those of you who care about recruiting ratings, here are the starter’s Rivals ratings:
Purdue...........................Nebraska
QB Plummer 3*..............McCaffrey 3*/Martinez 4*
RB Horvath NR...............Mills 4* (JUCO)
WR R. Moore 3*….…....Warner NR
WR Bell 4*.........….........Falck NR
WR Wright 4*.................Robinson 4*
TE Durham 3*.................Allen 3*
LT Hermanns 2*.........….Jaimes 3*
LG Holstege 3*............... Piper 3*
C Garvin NR....................Jurgens 4* (ATH)
RG Hartwig 4*..................Farniok 3*
RT Long 2*........................Benhart 4*
DE Mitchell 3*..................T. Robinson 4*
DT Neal 2*………….........Daniels 3*
DT Deen 3*…....................Stille 3*
DE Sullivan 3*...................Nelson 3*
LB Alexander 3*....…....... Reimer NR
LB Fakasiieiki 2* ...............Honas 3*
LB Graham 3*...….……….Dormann 3*
CB Trice 3*.........…….........Bootle 3*
CB Mackey 3*......................Taylor-Britt 3* (ATH)
FS Allen 3*......……….........Dismuke 4*
SS Thieneman NR.......…….Williams 3*
Done to the home stretch and Nebraska visits West Lafayette in back to back years, the first time Nebraska’s played an opponent on the road in back to back years since they played at Kansas in 1990 and 1991. I don’t think they’re too happy about that. Then again, I don’t think Nebraska has been very happy at any time during this shortened season.
Nebraska is a bit unsettled at QB. After starting Junior Adrian Martinez to begin the season, Nebraska has turned to R-Frosh, Luke McCaffrey to lead the Huskers. Most recently, both have played with Martinez back in the starting role last week against Iowa.
Regardless of who plays, the offense is basically the same. McCaffrey is perhaps the better runner, Martinez the better passer. Either way, the QB’s will be running the ball as one of them has led the team in rushing each game this season.
In their opener against OSU, Nebraska had plays with both Martinez and McCaffrey on the field at the same time. While that seemed to be effective, I don’t believe they have used both at the same time since.
The fact that the Nebraska QBs have been the leading rushers in games is a bit odd, as they did bring in a well ranked JUCO at RB in Mills but has missed the last two games due to an injury. He is likely to go on Saturday. If not, Nebraska will turn to a freshman in Marvin Scott or use WR Wandale Robinson out of the backfield.
Speaking of which, Nebraska has seemed to use Robinson less out of the backfield than they did last season but lately have put him there frequently, even when Mills was available. He’s rushed 29 times over the past three games for 162 yards (5.6ypc) with a long of 32 yards (Illinois). He got injured last season when Frost kept running him up the middle. He's been lucky so far this season.
When Robinson isn’t at RB, he’s a WR of course and their #1 target by a long shot. His 30 receptions is more than double the next receiver (TE Allen). Those 30 receptions are nearly a third of the team’s reception (92). Nebraska has received a shot in arm at WR as former Iowa receiver Martin Oliver just became eligible and gives them another credible target.
Regardless of the manner they’ve achieved it, Nebraska is ranked 46th nationally in Rush Offense. On the other hand, their Passing Efficiency is ranked 107th for a Total Offense Ranking of 89th. Scoring Offense is also ranked 107th. With the variance between Total Offense and Scoring Offense so large, it’s obvious there are likely issues with turnovers. As suspected, their Turnover Margin is 116th.
One thing to watch for is Nebraska’s center, Jurgens, and the potential for bad snaps. He’s had a number of them the last few weeks. Frost has attributed them to a foot injury and to Iowa’s defense “clapping” to throw off the signals. I’m going more with the foot injury. Either way, they’ve come at inopportune times for Nebraska and have stalled a number of drives as a result.
Defensively, Nebraska hasn’t been horrible as they are ranked 78th in Total Defense. Passing Efficiency Defense is ranked a decent 64th but what pulls them down is their Rush Defense, ranked 103rd. Scoring Defense is at 91st, reasonably close to their Total Defense ranking.
One thing they have improved at as a team from prior seasons are penalties. This season they are ranked 85th in Penalties Per Game and 82nd in Penalty Yards per game. Average penalty yards are 8.8 which seems to indicate that they’ve cut down on the major penalties which plagued the team especially in Frost’s first season.
Needless to say, last week’s outcome was very disappointing for Purdue. An offense which seemed to be firing on all cylinders against Minnesota too often sputtered against Rutgers. Defensively, a lack of a push upfront or pressure on the QB allowed Rutgers to basically run their offense unimpeded. Several questionable calls did not help.
On offense, the tools are there at the skill positions, it’s become a matter of execution. And, while there is talent on the O-Line, it’s important to remember that there is also a lot of youth on that line and it’s missing two starters, both at Guard.
Still Purdue’s managed to generate a rank of 60th nationally in Total Offense. Almost a reverse of Nebraska, Purdue’s Rushing Offense is ranked 122nd and the Pass Efficiency is ranked 47th. Scoring Offense trails Total Offense coming in ranked 76th.
On defense, it’s much the same. Total Defense is ranked 63rd with the breakdown being ranked 54th in Rushing Offense (probably a surprise to many) and 81st in Team Pass Efficiency (maybe not a surprise). Scoring Defense is nearly dead on with Total Defense as it’s ranked 61st.
With the Total and Scoring rankings for both Offense and Defense being fairly close, you’d expect the Turnover Margin to be pretty much neutral and, sure enough, Purdue is ranked 56th with a +0.2 per game margin.
Again, compared to last season, all of these numbers are generally improvements. Season ending rankings from last year were:
Total Offense 78th
Rush Offense 126th
Pass Efficiency 68th
Scoring Offense 87th
Total Defense 100th
Rush Defense 99th
Pass Efficiency D 81st
Scoring Defense 86th
Turnover Margin 113th
That’s not to say there isn’t a great deal of room for improvement on both sides of the ball. The offense for instance should arguably be more explosive, especially now that Rondale is back on the field. However, so far this season, Purdue has garnered just 21 plays over 20 yards from scrimmage (4 rushing/17 passing). Last season, at this same point in time (5 conference games) Purdue had 20 (1 rushing/19 passing).
Like it or not, there remains some big holes in the lineup. Some players are younger than they should be, some are older but are only playing due to their experience, some are undersized, some may too big, etc. At some point “It’s not the “x’s” and “o’s”, it’s the Jimmy’s and Joe’s.” As pointed out weekly, Purdue’s gotten better physically and more experienced over the last few years, but for the most part is still comparatively in the lower part of the league. The good news is that they will only get better as the players get older. The bad news is that to do so takes time and patience.
Moving on.
I wrote last week about the old cliché’ about not letting one loss turn into two. I believe Purdue allowed that to happen last week. They came out flat, had a bit of a spark, but when they had some adversity (KO return, no PI in the EZ, Mitchell’s PF negating an INT and Barnes questionable targeting call) they couldn’t recover.
This has been a strange year to say the least. New coaches who weren’t able to properly install their systems. The season’s off, the season’s on, the season’s off again, the season’s on again. Games canceled. Player’s (and coaches) unable to participate. The players have been working out or practicing for months and last Saturday would have normally marked the end of the season. It has been a difficult semester for most students and putting the demands of competing athletically just adds to that difficulty. It’s wears on everyone. Mentally and physically some players may be just “spent”. I don’t subscribe to the notion that players have “quit” but I do believe their psyche is certainly fragile right now.
That said, momentum will be key this week. Nebraska is likely in the same boat coming in with their 1-4 record. An early lead, a key turnover, etc. could snowball in either team’s favor.
It’s hard to say what, if any, effect having former Nebraska DC and current Purdue DC Diaco will have on Nebraska’s players, but their media is certainly obsessed with seeing him again. Needless to say, his stint in Lincoln was not well received, deserved or not. Odd to say the least.
This will be Nebraska’s second game of the season on natural turf having lost to Northwestern earlier this year 21-13. Nebraska is playing the second of back to back road games which should benefit Purdue however Nebraska did get an extra day by virtue of playing on Friday last week.
For everyone concerned about Purdue’s Anderson putting his name in the transfer portal: Nebraska has lost 18 scholarship players since the end of last season. Doing the math, that’s over 21% of their team (18/85).
Weather predicted for Saturday is partly sunny with a high around 41 degrees. So far, Purdue has been pretty fortunate with the weather this late into the extended season.
Game day can’t get here soon enough.
Let’s play football!
Taking a look at the size and experience of the Nebraska Lines and LBs and seeing how they match up against Purdue's equivalents (Note: Purdue has not released a 2-deep so the numbers are based on prior starters with some additions/subtraction guesses in injury/suspension situations).
- Breaking the trend of alternating small then large OLs, Purdue is facing Small in back to back weeks. The Nebraska line is coming in at 303.0 lbs. They are well below average in terms of size and in experience for any Purdue opponent at 2.4 years of experience. Even though they are not old as a group, the players collectively have a very good 96 starts between them. Nebraska actually returned all five starters from last year’s line but two of them (Hixson & Wilson) have been supplanted as starters however at least Wilson is still getting regular reps. Last year’s RT, Farniok, has moved inside to guard.
- This week’s Purdue’s projected D-Line (Sullivan, Neal, Deen, Mitchell) averages about 286.3lbs, up 18.8lbs from last year’s 267.5 lbs. They will be outweighed by the Nebraska line by about 13.7lbs per man on average. Purdue’s average experience is 2.75 years, up a half year from last year’s line. The size of this group is right at the average for a B10 team. The unit is well below average in terms of experience. As a unit they have 39 collective starts not counting Mitchell’s JUCO experience.
- Purdue’s projected LBs (Graham, Fakasiieiki, Alexander) come in at 225.0 lbs, equal to last year and are at 3.00 years of experience, up from 2.33 last season. They have a collective 29 starts between them. Size wise, this group is below the average for the B10 and all opponents but well below the average in terms of experience. The loss of Barnes for the 1st half of the game hurts. I’m guessing about Fakasiieiki starting in his place.
- Purdue’s projected O-line (Hermanns, Holstege, Garvin, Hartwig, Long) will average 301.0 lbs per man, up by 4 lbs from last year’s 297.0 lbs. While much improved, Purdue's size is still going to be well below average compared to the rest of the B10 and other Purdue opponents, but slightly below the mean (Minnesota, IU and Wisconsin skew the average). They average 2.6 years of experience, up from last season’s 2.4 years. Purdue started Hartwig over Washington (who replaced Jornigan) against Minnesota which drops the size and experience down a bit. With that change, their experience puts them well below the B10 average. Collectively, they are still young in years for an O-line and it shows in the number of starts, with 55 (Long’s 11 UTEP starts not included). Starting out last season, this group had 51 starts but they were concentrated in McCann (36) and Hermanns (15) so Purdue should be better this season and I believe that’s been born out.
- Nebraska features a 3 man front. As with other teams, we count the largest OLB as a DE for these calculations. At 302.5 lbs, Nebraska’s D-line is easily the largest in the B10 and roughly 9lbs per man larger than Illinois’, the next biggest in the league. They will however be very below average in terms of experience with a 2.5 year average. A single starter returns from last season. They’re essentially the same weight per man as Purdue’s O-line being outweighed by 0.5 lbs per man. With the new starters they’ll have just 32 starts between them. The size of just the three DL (not including the OLB) is about 317lbs per man. Size-wise, this is probably what Purdue should aim for. Purdue by comparison, is closer to 292lbs per man per listed weights.
- Unlike the large D-Line, the Nebraska LBs come in slightly below average in size for the B10 and for Purdue’s opponents at 226.67 lbs,. The position is stocked with two Seniors so they come in right at the B10 average in terms of experience with 3.33 years at the position. Like the D-Line, a single starter returns from last year and this group will have 20 starts between them. Missing from the lineup is former Purdue recruit and Fisher’s native Colin Miller, who suffered a spinal injury two weeks ago against Illinois. Miller was an anchor on the Nebraska defense and his absence on the field will be missed. He made an appearance on the sidelines last week in Nebraska’s game against Iowa and it’s likely he’ll make the trip to West Lafayette for sideline support.
Vegas predicts Purdue by 2.0 points (Opened up as a Purdue -1)
MasseyRatings predicts a 30-27 Purdue win
Sagarin predicts a 0.61 point Purdue win
EigenVector Analysis predicts Purdue by 5.83 with a 66% confidence factor
CollegeFootballPoll predicts a 3.75 Purdue win
For those of you who care about recruiting ratings, here are the starter’s Rivals ratings:
Purdue...........................Nebraska
QB Plummer 3*..............McCaffrey 3*/Martinez 4*
RB Horvath NR...............Mills 4* (JUCO)
WR R. Moore 3*….…....Warner NR
WR Bell 4*.........….........Falck NR
WR Wright 4*.................Robinson 4*
TE Durham 3*.................Allen 3*
LT Hermanns 2*.........….Jaimes 3*
LG Holstege 3*............... Piper 3*
C Garvin NR....................Jurgens 4* (ATH)
RG Hartwig 4*..................Farniok 3*
RT Long 2*........................Benhart 4*
DE Mitchell 3*..................T. Robinson 4*
DT Neal 2*………….........Daniels 3*
DT Deen 3*…....................Stille 3*
DE Sullivan 3*...................Nelson 3*
LB Alexander 3*....…....... Reimer NR
LB Fakasiieiki 2* ...............Honas 3*
LB Graham 3*...….……….Dormann 3*
CB Trice 3*.........…….........Bootle 3*
CB Mackey 3*......................Taylor-Britt 3* (ATH)
FS Allen 3*......……….........Dismuke 4*
SS Thieneman NR.......…….Williams 3*
Done to the home stretch and Nebraska visits West Lafayette in back to back years, the first time Nebraska’s played an opponent on the road in back to back years since they played at Kansas in 1990 and 1991. I don’t think they’re too happy about that. Then again, I don’t think Nebraska has been very happy at any time during this shortened season.
Nebraska is a bit unsettled at QB. After starting Junior Adrian Martinez to begin the season, Nebraska has turned to R-Frosh, Luke McCaffrey to lead the Huskers. Most recently, both have played with Martinez back in the starting role last week against Iowa.
Regardless of who plays, the offense is basically the same. McCaffrey is perhaps the better runner, Martinez the better passer. Either way, the QB’s will be running the ball as one of them has led the team in rushing each game this season.
In their opener against OSU, Nebraska had plays with both Martinez and McCaffrey on the field at the same time. While that seemed to be effective, I don’t believe they have used both at the same time since.
The fact that the Nebraska QBs have been the leading rushers in games is a bit odd, as they did bring in a well ranked JUCO at RB in Mills but has missed the last two games due to an injury. He is likely to go on Saturday. If not, Nebraska will turn to a freshman in Marvin Scott or use WR Wandale Robinson out of the backfield.
Speaking of which, Nebraska has seemed to use Robinson less out of the backfield than they did last season but lately have put him there frequently, even when Mills was available. He’s rushed 29 times over the past three games for 162 yards (5.6ypc) with a long of 32 yards (Illinois). He got injured last season when Frost kept running him up the middle. He's been lucky so far this season.
When Robinson isn’t at RB, he’s a WR of course and their #1 target by a long shot. His 30 receptions is more than double the next receiver (TE Allen). Those 30 receptions are nearly a third of the team’s reception (92). Nebraska has received a shot in arm at WR as former Iowa receiver Martin Oliver just became eligible and gives them another credible target.
Regardless of the manner they’ve achieved it, Nebraska is ranked 46th nationally in Rush Offense. On the other hand, their Passing Efficiency is ranked 107th for a Total Offense Ranking of 89th. Scoring Offense is also ranked 107th. With the variance between Total Offense and Scoring Offense so large, it’s obvious there are likely issues with turnovers. As suspected, their Turnover Margin is 116th.
One thing to watch for is Nebraska’s center, Jurgens, and the potential for bad snaps. He’s had a number of them the last few weeks. Frost has attributed them to a foot injury and to Iowa’s defense “clapping” to throw off the signals. I’m going more with the foot injury. Either way, they’ve come at inopportune times for Nebraska and have stalled a number of drives as a result.
Defensively, Nebraska hasn’t been horrible as they are ranked 78th in Total Defense. Passing Efficiency Defense is ranked a decent 64th but what pulls them down is their Rush Defense, ranked 103rd. Scoring Defense is at 91st, reasonably close to their Total Defense ranking.
One thing they have improved at as a team from prior seasons are penalties. This season they are ranked 85th in Penalties Per Game and 82nd in Penalty Yards per game. Average penalty yards are 8.8 which seems to indicate that they’ve cut down on the major penalties which plagued the team especially in Frost’s first season.
Needless to say, last week’s outcome was very disappointing for Purdue. An offense which seemed to be firing on all cylinders against Minnesota too often sputtered against Rutgers. Defensively, a lack of a push upfront or pressure on the QB allowed Rutgers to basically run their offense unimpeded. Several questionable calls did not help.
On offense, the tools are there at the skill positions, it’s become a matter of execution. And, while there is talent on the O-Line, it’s important to remember that there is also a lot of youth on that line and it’s missing two starters, both at Guard.
Still Purdue’s managed to generate a rank of 60th nationally in Total Offense. Almost a reverse of Nebraska, Purdue’s Rushing Offense is ranked 122nd and the Pass Efficiency is ranked 47th. Scoring Offense trails Total Offense coming in ranked 76th.
On defense, it’s much the same. Total Defense is ranked 63rd with the breakdown being ranked 54th in Rushing Offense (probably a surprise to many) and 81st in Team Pass Efficiency (maybe not a surprise). Scoring Defense is nearly dead on with Total Defense as it’s ranked 61st.
With the Total and Scoring rankings for both Offense and Defense being fairly close, you’d expect the Turnover Margin to be pretty much neutral and, sure enough, Purdue is ranked 56th with a +0.2 per game margin.
Again, compared to last season, all of these numbers are generally improvements. Season ending rankings from last year were:
Total Offense 78th
Rush Offense 126th
Pass Efficiency 68th
Scoring Offense 87th
Total Defense 100th
Rush Defense 99th
Pass Efficiency D 81st
Scoring Defense 86th
Turnover Margin 113th
That’s not to say there isn’t a great deal of room for improvement on both sides of the ball. The offense for instance should arguably be more explosive, especially now that Rondale is back on the field. However, so far this season, Purdue has garnered just 21 plays over 20 yards from scrimmage (4 rushing/17 passing). Last season, at this same point in time (5 conference games) Purdue had 20 (1 rushing/19 passing).
Like it or not, there remains some big holes in the lineup. Some players are younger than they should be, some are older but are only playing due to their experience, some are undersized, some may too big, etc. At some point “It’s not the “x’s” and “o’s”, it’s the Jimmy’s and Joe’s.” As pointed out weekly, Purdue’s gotten better physically and more experienced over the last few years, but for the most part is still comparatively in the lower part of the league. The good news is that they will only get better as the players get older. The bad news is that to do so takes time and patience.
Moving on.
I wrote last week about the old cliché’ about not letting one loss turn into two. I believe Purdue allowed that to happen last week. They came out flat, had a bit of a spark, but when they had some adversity (KO return, no PI in the EZ, Mitchell’s PF negating an INT and Barnes questionable targeting call) they couldn’t recover.
This has been a strange year to say the least. New coaches who weren’t able to properly install their systems. The season’s off, the season’s on, the season’s off again, the season’s on again. Games canceled. Player’s (and coaches) unable to participate. The players have been working out or practicing for months and last Saturday would have normally marked the end of the season. It has been a difficult semester for most students and putting the demands of competing athletically just adds to that difficulty. It’s wears on everyone. Mentally and physically some players may be just “spent”. I don’t subscribe to the notion that players have “quit” but I do believe their psyche is certainly fragile right now.
That said, momentum will be key this week. Nebraska is likely in the same boat coming in with their 1-4 record. An early lead, a key turnover, etc. could snowball in either team’s favor.
It’s hard to say what, if any, effect having former Nebraska DC and current Purdue DC Diaco will have on Nebraska’s players, but their media is certainly obsessed with seeing him again. Needless to say, his stint in Lincoln was not well received, deserved or not. Odd to say the least.
This will be Nebraska’s second game of the season on natural turf having lost to Northwestern earlier this year 21-13. Nebraska is playing the second of back to back road games which should benefit Purdue however Nebraska did get an extra day by virtue of playing on Friday last week.
For everyone concerned about Purdue’s Anderson putting his name in the transfer portal: Nebraska has lost 18 scholarship players since the end of last season. Doing the math, that’s over 21% of their team (18/85).
Weather predicted for Saturday is partly sunny with a high around 41 degrees. So far, Purdue has been pretty fortunate with the weather this late into the extended season.
Game day can’t get here soon enough.
Let’s play football!
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