First out of the box are the Oregon State Beavers.
Taking a look at the size and experience of the Oregon State Lines and LBs and seeing how they match up against Purdue's equivalents. (Note: Purdue has not released a 2-deep for this week’s game so I’m making some educated guesses about personnel.) (Note#2 – A number of teams on this season’s schedule have already factored in the player’s extra year of eligibility. Where possible, I’ve not done so in order to try and get a truer picture of each team’s experience. Thus, my numbers may not always jibe with other sites however a Senior, 5th year and 6th year player all count the same) (Note #3 – As not every team has released a 2-deep, I have not done the normal comparisons to other B10 teams this week. Following everyone’s first game, that information should be available and comparisons will return at that time)
- Starting small. This week Purdue’s defense will face a Oregon State O-line which will the smallest line from a G5 team since Purdue faced MSU in 2018 coming in at 298.6 lbs. They return all 5 starter from last season, however as a group, they are still on the young size with an average of 2.8 years of experience. Collectively, they have a very good 82 career starts with the center accounting for 33 of those (some from his time in Arizona). Last season Iowa was the smallest, but OSU's is actually smaller.
- This week’s Purdue’s projected D-Line (Kalaftkis, Johnson, Dean, Mitchell) averages about 281.3 lbs, down 5.0lbs from last year’s 288.3 lbs due to missing Neal’s mass. They will be outweighed by the Oregon State line by about 17.3 lbs per man on average. Purdue’s average experience is 3.25 years, up a a half year to last year’s line. As a unit they have 35 collective starts.
- Purdue’s projected LBs (Graham, Alexander, Brothers) come in at 226.7 lbs, up slightly from last year and are at 3.00 years of experience, the same as last season even with the loss of Barnes. They have a collective 25 starts between them.
- Purdue’s projected O-line (Long, Holstege, Hartwig, Witt, Miller) will average 306.0 lbs per man, up by 5 lbs from last year’s 301.0 lbs. They average 3.00 years of experience, up nearly a half-year from last season’s 2.6 years. Collectively, they have a decent number of starts, in 69. Starting out last season, this group had a mere 36 starts 51 starts so Purdue should be in much better shape this season.
- Oregon State features a 3 man front so we’ve added in their largest OLB for comparison sake. At 293.0 lbs, they will be one of the larger groups Purdue will face this season and have an anchor in the middle who’s listed at 347lbs. However, they are relatively young with a 2.50 year average. They have three new starters this year. They’ll be outweighed by Purdue’s O-line by 13.0 lbs per man. As mentioned, they’re largely all new starters so they’ll have just 11 starts between them (one of the DE's, Sandberg, has 10 of those).
- The three remaining Oregon State LBs are a larger group at 237.33 lbs. They also have decent experience with 3.0 years at the position and the collective starts are at 52. It’s not quite like the 89 that Northwestern’s LBs had last season, but it’s very good. This group is very similar in terms of size and experience to Iowa’s group that Purdue opened up with last year.
Vegas predicts Purdue by 7.0 points (Opened up as Purdue by 5.5 points)
MasseyRatings predicts a 34-28 Purdue win
Sagarin predicts a 0.07 point Oregon State win (Don’t think I’ve ever seen this slim of a margin)
CollegeFootballPoll predicts a 3.29 Purdue win.
Compughter Ratings doesn’t have Purdue on their free site (and I'm too cheap to pay), but does have Oregon State and Nebraska. The site ranks Purdue at #72 while Nebraska is farther behind at #81. The outcome of that simulation is 36-29 Nebraska. Just sayin’.
For those of you who care about recruiting ratings, here are the starter’s Rivals ratings:
Purdue...........................Oregon State
QB Plummer 3*..............Noyer 3* (Colorado)
RB Horvath NR..............Baylor 2*
WR Wright 4*..................Flemings 3*
WR Bell 4*.........…...……..Bradford 3*
WR Sheffield 3*.............. Lindsey 4* (Nebraska)
TE Durham 3*.................Musgrave 3*
LT Long 2*...................….J Gray 3*
LG Witt 2*...................... Levengood 3*
C Hartwig 4*...................Eldrige 2* (Arizona)
RG Holstege 2*............. Keobounnam 2* (DT)
RT Miller 3*..................... Kipper 2* (Hawaii)
DE Mitchell 3*..................Anderson NR
DT Johnson 3*……..…..….Sio 2*
DT Dean 3*…...................Sandberg 3*
DE/LB Karlaftis 4*..........Gumbs 4* (Oklahoma)
LB Alexander 3*....…...... Roberts 4* (Nebraska)
LB Brothers 3* ……………Speights 3*
LB Graham 3*...…………..Hughes-Murray 3*
CB Trice 3*.........……........Austin 3*
CB Mackey 3*..................Wright 2*
FS Allen 3*......……….........Oladapo NR
SS Grant 4*.................…. Julian 3*
Opening games are always a bit of a crapshoot: Which players have made major improvements over the off-season? Which teams improve due to coaching changes? How will former reserve players respond now that they’re in starting roles?
It’s a bit like Christmas morning. There’s excitement to unwrap the gifts but you never know if it will be a Transformer or underwear in that box until it’s ripped open.
Invariably, teams could look rusty. Timing and execution is rarely in mid-season form. You really only hope that you don’t shoot yourself in the foot with pre-snap penalties, delay of games and the like.
Couple of OSU trends look to be favorable for Purdue. OSU under the current HC is:
- 2-4 in Non-Conference games
- 4-10 in road games
- 2-14 in night games
- 2-6 in games played in September
- Are 0-3 in their opening games losing by an average of 24 points. (Admittedly, this is skewed a bit by the 77-31 loss to Ohio State in 2018.)
They are 2-2 in games on natural grass but have not played such a contest since they won against UCLA on October 5, 2019.
As noted, OSU returns their entire starting O-Line from last season which is always a positive. Less of a positive is that their projected starting QB, Nebbia, is likely out. Other key players reportedly are also dinged up so how effective OSU will be remains to be seen. Last season, they ranked slightly above average in Total Offense (56th) but much of that had to do with their then RB, Jerman Jefferson (858yards), who’s left for the NFL. Their passing efficiency offense (ranked 92nd) was more of an afterthought.
Defensively, their front 3 (or 4) is a bit undersized, a bit young and has very little starting experience. The strength of their defense looks to be with their LBs. My question with that group is that by being among the larger groups Purdue should see this season, how well do they cover receivers as Purdue will surely target their deep TE group and may even be able to match up a slot receiver on them. I’m reminded of the old adage about you can’t tackle what you can’t catch.
Last season, the group under performed as they came in ranked #95 in Total Defense and 77th in Pass Efficiency Defense. They also were poor in forcing turnovers as they ranked #109th in that category.
Purdue also returns a good portion of last year’s team, or at least that portion that really contributed. By comparison, Purdue was ranked 70th in Total Offense but unlike OSU, it was weighted more heavily on the pass (16th in Passing Yards, 41st in Pass Efficiency).
On defense, all but a handful of players return from a squad that ended up ranked 56th in Total Defense but 93rd in Pass Efficiency Defense. And, while the Turnover Margin was above average at 54th, they too weren’t very good at forcing turnovers coming in ranked 98th. The biggest departure for the defense is probably Diaco and his staff, replaced by an experienced and energetic foursome that reportedly has the team playing more aggressively, trying to improve upon the #98 ranking of turnovers forced.
As a team, we believe that outside of LB Fakasiieki, who was lost for the year, the starters should come into the game healthy.
Like any game, for a team to win they will need to avoid turnovers and penalties and simply avoid shooting themselves in the foot. Purdue had been doing a good job on the turnovers but last season took a step back in committing penalties having been ranked in the Top 10 in 2019 but falling into the 90’s last season. Look for the discipline to return with the players having the full Spring, offseason and Fall camp together this year.
It will be interesting to see what, if any, the changes to limit contact during the Fall camp have on the teams. Early last season, we saw a lot of poor tackling as many teams had not done much “live” work in preparation for the season. Will be looking to see if that same trend takes place again this year.
Weather looks to be perfect for football. It’s a night game and for the first time in 21 or so months, Purdue will play in front of fans. And, by all accounts, it will be close to a sold out Ross-Ade. While I would have preferred an early game to better put the West Coast team at a disadvantage (seemingly Purdue gets similar treatment going West), a night game should give the fans a little extra time to “prepare” for the game. Normally, home field advantage provides about 3-4 points. I think in this case, it will account for about double that.
I have confidence that the offense should be able to score points. The question is how well the defense will do. If, for nothing else, as this game is being played at home under the conditions previously noted, the crowd should provide a lot of energy to the defense and that may very well be the difference. As shown above, the computer models are all over the board going from the slimmest of slim losses to a win by a TD. I actually think it will be Purdue by double digits. It won’t be “comfortable” until the end, but I think Purdue starts off 2021 with a win for the second year in a row.
Let’s play football!
Taking a look at the size and experience of the Oregon State Lines and LBs and seeing how they match up against Purdue's equivalents. (Note: Purdue has not released a 2-deep for this week’s game so I’m making some educated guesses about personnel.) (Note#2 – A number of teams on this season’s schedule have already factored in the player’s extra year of eligibility. Where possible, I’ve not done so in order to try and get a truer picture of each team’s experience. Thus, my numbers may not always jibe with other sites however a Senior, 5th year and 6th year player all count the same) (Note #3 – As not every team has released a 2-deep, I have not done the normal comparisons to other B10 teams this week. Following everyone’s first game, that information should be available and comparisons will return at that time)
- Starting small. This week Purdue’s defense will face a Oregon State O-line which will the smallest line from a G5 team since Purdue faced MSU in 2018 coming in at 298.6 lbs. They return all 5 starter from last season, however as a group, they are still on the young size with an average of 2.8 years of experience. Collectively, they have a very good 82 career starts with the center accounting for 33 of those (some from his time in Arizona). Last season Iowa was the smallest, but OSU's is actually smaller.
- This week’s Purdue’s projected D-Line (Kalaftkis, Johnson, Dean, Mitchell) averages about 281.3 lbs, down 5.0lbs from last year’s 288.3 lbs due to missing Neal’s mass. They will be outweighed by the Oregon State line by about 17.3 lbs per man on average. Purdue’s average experience is 3.25 years, up a a half year to last year’s line. As a unit they have 35 collective starts.
- Purdue’s projected LBs (Graham, Alexander, Brothers) come in at 226.7 lbs, up slightly from last year and are at 3.00 years of experience, the same as last season even with the loss of Barnes. They have a collective 25 starts between them.
- Purdue’s projected O-line (Long, Holstege, Hartwig, Witt, Miller) will average 306.0 lbs per man, up by 5 lbs from last year’s 301.0 lbs. They average 3.00 years of experience, up nearly a half-year from last season’s 2.6 years. Collectively, they have a decent number of starts, in 69. Starting out last season, this group had a mere 36 starts 51 starts so Purdue should be in much better shape this season.
- Oregon State features a 3 man front so we’ve added in their largest OLB for comparison sake. At 293.0 lbs, they will be one of the larger groups Purdue will face this season and have an anchor in the middle who’s listed at 347lbs. However, they are relatively young with a 2.50 year average. They have three new starters this year. They’ll be outweighed by Purdue’s O-line by 13.0 lbs per man. As mentioned, they’re largely all new starters so they’ll have just 11 starts between them (one of the DE's, Sandberg, has 10 of those).
- The three remaining Oregon State LBs are a larger group at 237.33 lbs. They also have decent experience with 3.0 years at the position and the collective starts are at 52. It’s not quite like the 89 that Northwestern’s LBs had last season, but it’s very good. This group is very similar in terms of size and experience to Iowa’s group that Purdue opened up with last year.
Vegas predicts Purdue by 7.0 points (Opened up as Purdue by 5.5 points)
MasseyRatings predicts a 34-28 Purdue win
Sagarin predicts a 0.07 point Oregon State win (Don’t think I’ve ever seen this slim of a margin)
CollegeFootballPoll predicts a 3.29 Purdue win.
Compughter Ratings doesn’t have Purdue on their free site (and I'm too cheap to pay), but does have Oregon State and Nebraska. The site ranks Purdue at #72 while Nebraska is farther behind at #81. The outcome of that simulation is 36-29 Nebraska. Just sayin’.
For those of you who care about recruiting ratings, here are the starter’s Rivals ratings:
Purdue...........................Oregon State
QB Plummer 3*..............Noyer 3* (Colorado)
RB Horvath NR..............Baylor 2*
WR Wright 4*..................Flemings 3*
WR Bell 4*.........…...……..Bradford 3*
WR Sheffield 3*.............. Lindsey 4* (Nebraska)
TE Durham 3*.................Musgrave 3*
LT Long 2*...................….J Gray 3*
LG Witt 2*...................... Levengood 3*
C Hartwig 4*...................Eldrige 2* (Arizona)
RG Holstege 2*............. Keobounnam 2* (DT)
RT Miller 3*..................... Kipper 2* (Hawaii)
DE Mitchell 3*..................Anderson NR
DT Johnson 3*……..…..….Sio 2*
DT Dean 3*…...................Sandberg 3*
DE/LB Karlaftis 4*..........Gumbs 4* (Oklahoma)
LB Alexander 3*....…...... Roberts 4* (Nebraska)
LB Brothers 3* ……………Speights 3*
LB Graham 3*...…………..Hughes-Murray 3*
CB Trice 3*.........……........Austin 3*
CB Mackey 3*..................Wright 2*
FS Allen 3*......……….........Oladapo NR
SS Grant 4*.................…. Julian 3*
Opening games are always a bit of a crapshoot: Which players have made major improvements over the off-season? Which teams improve due to coaching changes? How will former reserve players respond now that they’re in starting roles?
It’s a bit like Christmas morning. There’s excitement to unwrap the gifts but you never know if it will be a Transformer or underwear in that box until it’s ripped open.
Invariably, teams could look rusty. Timing and execution is rarely in mid-season form. You really only hope that you don’t shoot yourself in the foot with pre-snap penalties, delay of games and the like.
Couple of OSU trends look to be favorable for Purdue. OSU under the current HC is:
- 2-4 in Non-Conference games
- 4-10 in road games
- 2-14 in night games
- 2-6 in games played in September
- Are 0-3 in their opening games losing by an average of 24 points. (Admittedly, this is skewed a bit by the 77-31 loss to Ohio State in 2018.)
They are 2-2 in games on natural grass but have not played such a contest since they won against UCLA on October 5, 2019.
As noted, OSU returns their entire starting O-Line from last season which is always a positive. Less of a positive is that their projected starting QB, Nebbia, is likely out. Other key players reportedly are also dinged up so how effective OSU will be remains to be seen. Last season, they ranked slightly above average in Total Offense (56th) but much of that had to do with their then RB, Jerman Jefferson (858yards), who’s left for the NFL. Their passing efficiency offense (ranked 92nd) was more of an afterthought.
Defensively, their front 3 (or 4) is a bit undersized, a bit young and has very little starting experience. The strength of their defense looks to be with their LBs. My question with that group is that by being among the larger groups Purdue should see this season, how well do they cover receivers as Purdue will surely target their deep TE group and may even be able to match up a slot receiver on them. I’m reminded of the old adage about you can’t tackle what you can’t catch.
Last season, the group under performed as they came in ranked #95 in Total Defense and 77th in Pass Efficiency Defense. They also were poor in forcing turnovers as they ranked #109th in that category.
Purdue also returns a good portion of last year’s team, or at least that portion that really contributed. By comparison, Purdue was ranked 70th in Total Offense but unlike OSU, it was weighted more heavily on the pass (16th in Passing Yards, 41st in Pass Efficiency).
On defense, all but a handful of players return from a squad that ended up ranked 56th in Total Defense but 93rd in Pass Efficiency Defense. And, while the Turnover Margin was above average at 54th, they too weren’t very good at forcing turnovers coming in ranked 98th. The biggest departure for the defense is probably Diaco and his staff, replaced by an experienced and energetic foursome that reportedly has the team playing more aggressively, trying to improve upon the #98 ranking of turnovers forced.
As a team, we believe that outside of LB Fakasiieki, who was lost for the year, the starters should come into the game healthy.
Like any game, for a team to win they will need to avoid turnovers and penalties and simply avoid shooting themselves in the foot. Purdue had been doing a good job on the turnovers but last season took a step back in committing penalties having been ranked in the Top 10 in 2019 but falling into the 90’s last season. Look for the discipline to return with the players having the full Spring, offseason and Fall camp together this year.
It will be interesting to see what, if any, the changes to limit contact during the Fall camp have on the teams. Early last season, we saw a lot of poor tackling as many teams had not done much “live” work in preparation for the season. Will be looking to see if that same trend takes place again this year.
Weather looks to be perfect for football. It’s a night game and for the first time in 21 or so months, Purdue will play in front of fans. And, by all accounts, it will be close to a sold out Ross-Ade. While I would have preferred an early game to better put the West Coast team at a disadvantage (seemingly Purdue gets similar treatment going West), a night game should give the fans a little extra time to “prepare” for the game. Normally, home field advantage provides about 3-4 points. I think in this case, it will account for about double that.
I have confidence that the offense should be able to score points. The question is how well the defense will do. If, for nothing else, as this game is being played at home under the conditions previously noted, the crowd should provide a lot of energy to the defense and that may very well be the difference. As shown above, the computer models are all over the board going from the slimmest of slim losses to a win by a TD. I actually think it will be Purdue by double digits. It won’t be “comfortable” until the end, but I think Purdue starts off 2021 with a win for the second year in a row.
Let’s play football!
