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I could say something emotional about the win, OR I could hope we all have our own memories that may or may not include a realization of how low our TV room ceilings are. a Bad Defense and The Great Offense Going into Saturday's game , I was pretty confident the Boilers - a pretty darn solid offense - would have success scoring against a struggling Buckeye defense. That is exactly what happened. These are numbers that should be left to stand on their own because HOLY MACKEREL PURDUE DID THAT TO OHIO STATE. Figure 1: Purdue Individual Rushing Statistics [1,2] Figure 2: Purdue Individual Passing Statistics [1,2] Only thing to note is that Purdue's rushing came mainly from some explosive runs from Knox rather than a consistent set of runs from all the backs. This isn't exactly what you want to see for success through a season (and a sign run blocking may need a bit of work), but you have to give D.J. some credit here. an Inability to Score The Buckeyes, at le...

With a 46-7 beat down of the Illini, the Cannon remains in West Lafayette. For those of you who ran the Boilermaker Half Marathon along with me, watching the game provided a nice thing to do while resting some tired legs. It also places Purdue at 2-1 in conference, a half game and a tie breaker back from Northwestern (3-1 in conference, 3-3 overall) in the table and tied with Wisconsin (4-2 overall) and Iowa (5-1 overall) [1] in second. How did this happen? Well... A (Santa) Lovie Smith Offense Coming into the game, I was most scared of Illinois's rushing offense moving the ball effectively. That failed to happen: Figure 1: Illinois Individual Rushing Statistics [2,3] The Boilermaker defense shutdown the Illinois rushing offense, which has averaged 6.09 yards/rush over the season. This came from containing quarterback AJ Bush, who managed only 3.33 yards/rush compared to his 6.30 season average. Given the Boilers had struggled to contain mobile quarterbacks through t...

No one got arrested at Where Else. Good. Time for the Illinois preview... B-Word Update But first, with updated S&P+ ratings, comes updated game probabilities, and of course, a pleasant reminder of the fact Southwest airlines provides free checked bags to wherever your holiday will take you. Whether or not that includes Purdue football. Figure 1: Purdue Win Distribution [1] Santa Lovie is Coaching Right Now For those of you who have not seen the beard Lovie Smith is currently gracing Champaign with, well, check it out in all of its Claus-like greatness: https://www.yardbarker.com/college_football/articles/twitter_enraptured_by_lovie_smiths_magnificent_beard/s1_12680_27323777 The Illini are 3-2, with wins over Kent State, Western Illinois, and Rutgers. That would be the best start the former Bears and Bucs coach has had at Illinois, after going 1-4 in 2016 and 2-3 (the only two wins that year) in 2017. The Illini have had success running the ball, with 6.35 yards/r...

Nebraska has been quite bad in Scott Frost's first season. We beat them handily, which continues the level of play the Boilers have put together in the past couple weeks. That is, of course, great. However, looking at the stats, there are a few worrying issues that present themselves, despite the very positive 42-28 score line. The Good, the Bad, and the Frustrating of the Passing Game Once again, Brohm leaned on the arm of David Blough to deliver a victory, with 54.43% of plays passes (FBS average: 47.02%). Blough continued to deliver. In both yards per dropback (7.81) and yards per completion (13.12), Blough exceeded the FBS average (6.72 yards/dropback and 12.43 yards/completion). He definitely has his offensive line to thank: the Huskers recorded a single sack on 43 dropbacks, for a sack rate of 2.33%. Nebraska's 7.69% sack rate on the season is above average (6.57%), and they were unable to get any pressure on Blough [1,2,3]. Figure 1: Purdue Individual Passing...