Points After: Analysis from Purdue’s loss to Wisconsin
Last time Purdue beat Wisconsin, most of the young men who played for the Boilermakers in tonight’s Big Ten-opening loss to the Badgers were babies.
Not kids.
Babies.
Like, Pampers-wearing, strained-carrots-eating babies.
I take it back. Maybe some of the COVID-year guys were at the front end of toddler-hood, but no matter. It’s been that long.
While none of those results had all that much to do with tonight’s, the template did remain the same.
It’s the line of scrimmage where Wisconsin again stomped around Purdue like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. No matter how different both these programs look today, the song remains the same.
Purdue couldn’t protect its quarterback and couldn’t budge Wisconsin at the point of attack. Hurry-up mode in the second half cleaned things up a bit, but this game was over at halftime, the same slow-bleed sort of outcome that’s been seen around West Lafayette most years during the past two decades. If I’m remembering correctly, only twice during this 17-game Badger win streak did Purdue had a real chance to win. More often than not, these have been PG-13 sorts of beatings. Maybe not blowouts on the scoreboard, but blowouts in spirit The first half tonight was more of the same and, as I said, the first half was the game.
Yeah, the offense came alive against what looked like a prevent-minded defense in the second half, but there are issues on offense that were laid bare tonight. Hudson Card never had a chance, truth be told. Purdue had real pass-protection problems and, to be honest, it has a real left tackle problem at the moment. I also don’t see a whole lot of pass-rush-cooling mechanisms in the playbook, or the play-calling. Screens and such, the sort of stuff you use to turn peoples’ aggressiveness against them, the way that Purdue’s opponents are slicing up its defense with mobility and sleight of hand at quarterback.
Meanwhile, there is a dearth of playmakers out there. The receivers and running backs and tight ends out there are doing some positive things, but Purdue could use a little more giddy-up. Of all the positions Purdue attacked in the portal, it needed help at wide receiver. Corey Gammage broke his commitment, Jahmal Edrine tore his ACL and Jayden Dixon-Veal has yet to get his name in the box score in limited opportunities. Didn’t help that Purdue’s depth of talent at receiver fell off a cliff real quick under the past staff, under which I’m not sure anything would be different through this first month.
But back to the defense.
Credit Ryan Walters for saying all the right things, but this third-down issue and these mobile-quarterback issues continue. Purdue is coaching defense, it seems, to be aggressive, to get up the field and to get to the ball. That’s getting weaponized against it when it can’t get to the quarterback.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
On one of Wisconsin’s first touchdowns, Purdue flooded scoring territory with most of its defenders dropping back into a zone, only three men rushing. With most of the defense facing the quarterback as he took off to run, Tanner Mordecai still beat everyone to the goal line, courtesy of a bad angle taken by the first tackler on the scene.
Further, how many times have quarterbacks felt the heat, but escaped and burned man defense on the back end with scrambles?
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I do think Purdue has pieces enough to be competitive and has shown flashes. There’s up-side here. But as every Purdue team for the better part of a generation can tell you: It takes a hell of a lot more than that to beat Wisconsin.
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