Points After: Analysis from Purdue’s win at Virginia Tech

Points After is GoldandBlack.com’s traditional post-game blog, an analytical platform to complement our standard on-site game coverage. Today, Purdue’s 24-17 win at Virginia Tech.

The water dumped on Ryan Walters following Purdue’s significant win at Virginia Tech on Saturday night was both ceremonial and redundant, considering how much water everyone took on on this day.

This was nutty, what with the five-and-a-half hour delay and all. I don’t know what Purdue did in the locker room all that time, but here are some things it would have had time to do.

• Cook a 16-and-a-half-pound turkey
• Watch “GoodFellas” twice.
• Drive to Cincinnati
• Play the Taylor Swift concert movie two-and-a-half times
• Listen to the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album nine times
• “Eight Minute Abs” 41 times. (Or Seven Minute Abs 47 times.)

What Purdue apparently did instead of any of those things during the 327-minute delay was stay engaged enough to go win an important game. “Signature win” might be a mouthful, but in the context of the program’s reboot and its head-to-toe newness, sure, why not?

Win or lose today, the most important box to heck was simply improvement from Week 1 to Week 2.

Ryan Walters and his staff got that and then some, and I don’t think the Boilermakers were bad last week against Fresno State. A couple mistakes here and there and some big-time plays by the Bulldogs spelled doom, though.

Saturday in Blacksburg, I don’t know if it was more impressive that Purdue showed real identity on offense. stepped up defensively, started strong, forced turnovers, completely flipped the third-down script, etc, as it was that the Boilermakers simply did everything it needed to do to win.

This was a game of response. Purdue lost a close one last week, won one this week. When the offense needed help from the defense or when the defense needed help from the offense, they obliged. When the offense established a passing rhythm early, the running game then took advantage. When Walters flew a bit too close to the sun — figuratively on this day of any day — on that first-half fourth-down call, the fine, fine line between aggressiveness and recklessness, the defense responded, holding Tech to a field goal. When Purdue got hosed by a sketchy personal foul call before half, giving the Hokies a touchdown, in effect, there was no reason to think that shook the visitors.

Purdue jumped out 17-0, but more notable was the second half, when things could have gone either way. When there was no margin for error, Purdue didn’t need any. When a clutch scoring drive was needed, Hudson Card and Devin Mockobee, et al, delivered. When there was clock to kill, Purdue curb-stomped it. That third-down conversion to Abdur-Rahmaan Yaseen was one of the plays of the game. The defense that couldn’t hold it down at the end last week, it did so this week. That said, I don’t think Virginia Tech is better than Fresno State but the circumstances this weekend were more adverse so let’s call it something close to a draw.

This was a really good win for Purdue, perhaps a springboard of sorts for a team and staff still settling in. Seeing improvement from one week to the next was important; getting a result to show for it was huge. Maybe the Boilermakers grew up some today, with still ample room for continued improvement.

PDF: Purdue-Virginia Tech statistics

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