Upon Further Review: Purdue’s win over Illinois

Upon Further Review is GoldandBlack.com’s detailed weekly look back at that weekend’s Purdue football game. Today, the Boilermakers’ win over Illinois. In this series, we will do our best to examine some of the finer points of game, the strategy, scheme and such things. We will do so without intimate knowledge of game plans and terminology and without access to all-22 video, so please keep all that in mind.

Use of these video clips (credit: NBC) is intended for editorial comment only.

Sorry, this is a bit limited this week because of the Peacock platform.

PURDUE OFFENSIVE PLAN AND RHYTHM

So, Illinois’ defense is not all that dissimilar to Purdue’s, if at all, obviously and it’s fair to say that the Boilermaker coaching staff’s knowledge of the Illini personnel didn’t hurt their chances to have offensive success.

Purdue did a nice job getting offense outside the tackles, thus neutralizing to some extent Illinois draft-picks-in-waiting Johhny Newton and Keith Randolph. Ryan Walters said Purdue specifically kept the ball away from Newton.

One of the Boilermakers’ go-to running plays was that sort of sweep out of the shotgun, and the running backs did a good job getting to the corner and around it, Illinois perhaps held up some by the illusion of read option on those plays.

Great job here by the right side of the line getting to their blocks.

Purdue moved the pocket some in the passing game off that running play, more east-west offense against a defensive front that wants to go north and south. You’ll see here that Purdue shows the handoffs, then rolls Hudson Card the opposite direction, dragging a tight end and receiver across the field with him. Card hits the second-level guy.

Misdirection was the name of the game for Purdue, especially in the red zone.

On Deion Burks’ extended-handoff TD, Purdue got the whole Illinois defense leaning one way, then sucker-punched it the other way.

On Devin Mockobee’s touchdown, Purdue shows a quick-hitter to Burks and brings the tight end across the formation — a scoring-territory staple — then counters the movement with the handoff.

Purdue’s big plays in the passing game …

Here, Purdue uses pre-snap motion to out Illinois’ man coverage and get the safety fixated on TJ Sheffield, then Illinois completely busts and leaves Garrett Miller all by his lonesome. Basically, I guess you could say that Purdue forced this mistake and a numbers of others by Illinois by making it think too much and creating conflict of assignment.

Lastly, Purdue has a vertical-passing capacity that can make the throws you need to make to beat this man-to-man, single-high-safety stuff both these programs run. Part of the reason Purdue had success against Illinois last year and gave Iowa fits over the years was its ability to make these downfield, outside-shoulder throws that cut off help from the inside against an isolated corner. Not easy throws to make, which is part of the calculus behind the defensive system. Purdue’s offensive M.O. under Jeff Brohm was these sorts of throws and now Hudson Card gives this staff the same ability.

PURDUE’S BIG DEFENSIVE PLAY

On Purdue’s defensive touchdown, it was almost like the Boilermaker knew the play, because its call was perfect, bringing Markevious Brown on a corner blitz, coming completely free thanks to Nic Scourton basically giving himself up to occupy the only Illini who could have gotten a piece of the blitzer. Notice the nuance of Scourton sort of moving his guy out of the way at the last instant.

Great execution by Purdue and a great, authoritative strip-sack by Brown.

It was a big-time pressure day for Purdue, as Illinois couldn’t block Scourton or Kydran Jenkins. Purdue ran a ton of blitzes and a ton of twists and stunts up front and crossed Illinois up a lot and exposed a very average quarterback.

At the same, a trend of Purdue really weaponizing Sanoussi Kane around the line of scrimmage continued. The safety’s use was part of the turnaround after halftime against Wisconsin and a big deal against Illinois.

This is how you defeat a block right here.

Here, Kane sure looks like he knows the play, because he positions himself before the snap like he sniffed it out, then jets in right behind the pulling lineman to make a play.

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