Avoiding The Spoilermakers
🚨 Warning: Purdue has the same colors as Vanderbilt. 🚨
In his Monday press conference, Dan Lanning essentially admitted that his clock-burning, 12-man on the field penalty at the end of the Ohio State game was intentional when he said:
“We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations. There’s some situations that don’t show up very often in college football but this is one that obviously was something we had worked on.”
What other kinds of situations do you think they’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on?
He obviously just revolutionized the onside kick, but what are his thoughts about fake spikes? Hooks and ladders? Fumblerooskis?
I would give anything to uncover all the hair-brained schemes that are buried within the big binder of secrets that Matt Noyer—Director of Football Operations and the pride of Beaverton High School—totes around during games.
But with a 2,240-mile roadtrip to West Lafayette, Indiana, looming, let’s just hope that the Oregon Ducks have spent an extra-inordinate amount of time on avoiding the dreaded, “Let Down Game.”
We all saw it happen to Alabama just two weeks ago.
They were fresh off of beating Georgia in their own Game of The Year when they travelled to Vanderbilt with a victory hangover so massive that it would’ve made both Steve Sarkisian and Jimmy Fallon cringe.
Bama clearly overlooked Vandy and their spunky quarterback, Diego Pavia, that afternoon, and if the Ducks have bigger goals than just one regular season win over Ohio State, they won’t make the same mistake with the Purdue Boilermakers (AKA the Spoilermakers) at 5pm PST tonight on FOX.
Purdue (1-5 (0-3)) has had a rough season so far, but they finally showed their first signs of life last week against 23rd-ranked Illinois in a 49-50 overtime loss.
It was a wild game that involved a crafty onside kick of their own, zero defense by either team, and a spunky debut start from their freshman QB, Ryan Browne (#15).
Browne stepped in for their concussed, veteran QB Hudson Card, and if I were Purdue I would keep Card in concussion protocol forever because Browne is—as the youths say—Him.
The 6-foot-4, 210-pound Browne had a whopping eighty-five yards rushing in the first half alone, and he finished the game with 118.
They gave him a ton of designed QB runs, which makes sense for a young starter who is just trying to quickly build confidence and stack a couple simple, successful consecutive plays.
For all of his rushing prowess, Browne only threw for nine yards in the first half, but he eventually cracked Illinois’ secondary with a total of 297 yards that helped lead Purdue to a forty-point second half.
Watching their young QB play in that game was like watching a series of one-act plays from a high school drama department where one kid just keeps coming out and acting circles around everyone else, but they’re almost too good and now they’re unfortunately making it obvious that all the other kids can’t act their way out of a paper bag.
And if you had written a script for this whole season, Ryan Browne would be the exact type of come-out-of-nowhere leading man who could star in a Friday night home upset over the #2 team in the nation—if he had the defense or skill talent around him to actually do it.
His favorite target so far is his big tight end, Max Klare (#86).
Purdue loves to use RPOs and short tight end screens to get Klare the ball—just like we do with Terrance Ferguson—but last week Browne also connected with him for a massive 62-yard reception.
Bassa, Boettcher, and Devon Jackson’s coverage skills will be put to the test as they try to match up with Klare’s physical size and also trust their safeties to help keep a lid on his explosive-play potential.
Their other offensive weapon to watch is Junior running back, Devin Mockobee (#45).
Mockobee has averaged over 1,000 all-purpose yards for the last two seasons and he reminds me a lot of Travis Dye with his ability to 1) be a reliable receiver and 2) run like a friggin’ cannonball.
It honestly wouldn’t surprise me one bit if both Browne and Mockobee had a better statistical night as a two-headed monster on the ground than Judkins and Henderson had against us last week.
But I won’t pretend like that’ll be enough for them to perform a miracle.
It’s really cute and mildly interesting that Purdue finally seems to be figuring things out offensively, but the odds of them actually Vanderbilt-ing us are still slim-to-none.
Oregon just stifled a far superior dual-threat quarterback in Will Howard, and they haven’t let any other quarterback like Chiles or McCoy kill them on the ground either.
And even if we come out of the gate a little sleepy on either side of the football, I trust Dan & Tosh to make second half adjustments on defense, and I trust our offensive talent to ultimately overcome any kind of initial let down.
And since Purdue’s defense has given up 50+ points to every moderately good team they’ve played so far, maybe the Ducks will simply buck all these fear-based stereotypes of a victory hangover and just come out swinging.
I personally think it sounds fun to score 50, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if Dan hits ~35 points and then shuts everything down like he did against UCLA & Michigan State.
It’s safe to say that Purdue’s head coach, Ryan Walters, has himself something very special and spunky with Ryan Browne—if he can keep him out of the portal come December—but his team might just be coming up against a green-and-yellow buzz saw tonight.
Just three games into their Big Ten history, Lanning and the Ducks have proven that they can win slow, ugly football games, and that they can also topple the perennial conference juggernaut.
But tonight they’ll look to prove that the West Coast Travel Curse is a non-factor, and that this moment isn’t too big for them.
And I don’t suspect Dan will have to crack open the big binder to do it.
38-13, Webfoots.
Go Ducks.
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Ground and pound! Then go deep
Let’s go!! No let down.