Three Thoughts From The Weekend: Purdue defensive personnel, Ross-Ade and more
GoldandBlack.com’s Three Thoughts from the Weekend column runs every Monday morning, with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting or whatever else comes to mind. In this week’s edition, we discuss some takeaways on Purdue’s new defense from the Fresno State game, Ross-Ade Stadium and more.
ON DEFENSIVE PERSONNEL AND IDENTITY
Purdue’s defense wasn’t going to become the ’85 Bears overnight just because it hired a defensive-minded coach and the first outcome of the Ryan Walters Era was not a great debut in that area. Fresno State’s third-down proficiency and ability to generate big plays were the difference in the game, amplified by the Boilermaker offense’s inability to stay on the field. More of that, to me, was about Fresno State making throws into windows and a couple times just flat lucking out, but Purdue’s shoddy tackling and apparent coverage busts at times certainly were costly.
That said, you got a look at concept and glimpses of potential in that context. You saw a proactive defense, not a reactive one. You saw a defense that will be unpredictable in what it does from snap to snap. A lot of these roles Purdue’s putting players in transcend position. Bunching up the line of scrimmage pre-snap and giving an offense very little idea what’s coming — provided tendencies don’t start showing up on tape as the season progresses — gives opponents a lot to worry about.
The key long term, though: Getting the athletes to effectively do a lot of different things. Purdue does have a potentially hellacious pair of edges in Nic Scourton and Kydran Jenkins, each of them seemingly the level of athlete that can be great rushing the passer but also adequate setting the edge against the run and at worst competent dropping into zone coverage at times, but that’s a lot to ask of any player, but sort of in line with some of the positionless trending in football nowadays.
Edges and corners, man, that’s where you win on defense these days, if you ask me.
The corners are set. It was just one game but starting corners Marquis Wilson and Markevious Brown looked good, to my untrained eye at least. The transfer wire was kind to Purdue there. They were not part of the tackling issue, a matter that was more about impact than volume. Matter of fact, they tackled well. Much is being asked of them given all the man-to-man coverage they’re being asked to play. That sort of style, though, is how Michigan State and Iowa and more recently Illinois became training grounds for NFL DBs.
In what amounted to a tough debut, I think Purdue showed enough promise to believe this defense can be good enough to win with all season; week-to-week improvement would be a reasonable expectation.
To draw big-picture conclusions off giving up almost 500 yards to Fresno State and failing to close out a game Purdue could easily have won is to ignore the ample credit Jeff Tedford and Mikey Keene deserve for winning that game every bit as much as Purdue lost it.
Purdue quarterback Hudson Card (Chad Krockover)
ON PURDUE’S OFFENSE
So Purdue made big plays against Fresno State. But if it didn’t make big plays, it pretty much made no plays, failing to simply possess the ball, particularly after halftime while playing from ahead. I don’t have to tell you that boom-or-bust, all-or-nothing isn’t a winning formula in the Big Ten, so there’s obviously improvement needed there.
If you ask me, Purdue didn’t show, and I’m gonna use sophisticated terminology here so bear with me, bread and butter. It ran a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but never really established anything foundational, that stuff you can call and execute in almost any situation, that eventually defenses will know is coming but still have to stop. Quick completions, RPO, that sort of thing. Air Raid thinking typically dictates the ball come out of the quarterback’s hands quickly and into the hands of somebody who can do something with it. I don’t know what Purdue’s version is supposed to look like, but only 30 pass attempts — it didn’t have the ball enough and a bunch of called passes wound up with scrambles or stuffs — didn’t reflect a comfort zone offensively, a rhythm, or whatever term you want to use. Maybe Garrett Miller would have mattered. Maybe a guy like Tyrone Tracy can matter more. Abdur-Rahmaan Yaseen showed some real “possession receiver” pop. Or maybe Graham Harrell and Hudson Card, et al, just need time to settle in.
Purdue obviously has offensive issues that must be worked around until they resolve themselves, if they ever do, all part of the reality that offensively, there’s some identity to be found here as well.
Purdue’s Ross-Ade Stadium (GoldandBlack.com)
ON ROSS-ADE STADIUM
I can’t comment on functionality because the parts of the stadium I use were untouched, but as far as aesthetics and environment went, it looked to me like Purdue did this right.
Everything about the facility looks sleek and modern and the enclosed south end zone underwent a considerable upgrade. The tunnel not only worked — people did in fact pass through it — but also looks good, adds some personality to the place and fixes an issue that’s been glaring since Purdue christened its new football building. Having the players walk through crowds to get out the south gate to head north to the locker room was just asking for trouble, particularly after emotionally charged games (i.e. pretty much any loss), and particularly night games. Closing off the road to allow the players to pass was just as impractical, bottle-necking people who might be celebratory, angry and/or intoxicated, or two of the three.
Getting the players and coaches a workaround solves that issue. That it upgrades the overall look and practicality of the stadium, hey, great.
As I wrote here last week (or whenever), your facilities often mirror your ambition. From my viewpoint, Purdue seems to have gotten this right, with more to come as the project continues.
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