CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Four => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on November 06, 2025, 01:45:21 AM
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I didn't see a thread for this yet, if there already is one please merge.
The series history is odd. It is fairly lopsided with the Buckeyes owning a 42-15-2 advantage including 14-9 in West Lafayette but it isn't as lopsided as you would expect given Purdue's and Ohio State's overall performances.
Purdue has five wins this century, all five in West Lafayette. That may not sound like a lot but it is a winning record for the Boilermakers against Ohio State in West Lafayette (5-4) and Purdue owns as many wins over Ohio State since 2000 as Penn State, more than any team not named Michigan. FWIW, wins over Ohio State since 2000:
- 7 Michigan, 7-17 (but only four if you don't count games in which Michigan was cheating their asses off so Purdue still has as many legitimate wins over Ohio State this century as any other team)
- 5 Purdue
- 5 Penn State
- 4 Wisconsin
- 3 Clemson
- 3 Michigan State
- 2 each: USC, USCe, Illinois, UF, Texas, Iowa, Oregon
The Buckeyes may be favored by more than four TD's but I'm hardly the only Ohio State fan who will never be confident of a win over Purdue unless the Buckeyes are actually up by four TD's in the fourth quarter . . . with the ball.
A look back at Purdue's five most recent wins over Ohio State:
October 20, 2018, #2 Ohio State (7-0/3-0) at nr Purdue (3-3/2-1):
The 2-1 league record is a bit misleading. Purdue lost to a decent Northwestern and beat cellar-dwellers UNL and IL. The Boilermakers even lost OOC at home to a Directional Michigan but when Ohio State came to town they suddenly looked like NC contenders. Purdue won 49-20 and finished 6-7. This was Ohio State's only loss of the 2018 season.
November 12, 2011, nr Ohio State (6-3/3-2) at nr Purdue (4-5/1-3):
I actually attended this one. Thank you for hosting @jhetfield99 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1625) , we enjoyed our visit even if we didn't like the outcome of the game. It was a strange game. Late in the game Ohio State was down 20-14 and scored what should have been the game-winning TD but they doinked the XP off the upright and lost in OT. As bad as 2011 was for Ohio State and coach Fickell, there was actually a brief moment during this game when Ohio State controlled their own destiny to the B1GCG. This was during the Legends/Leaders (aka Where is Wisconsin and Why is Wisconsin Here) era and the Buckeyes had managed to knock off Wisconsin on a miraculous play so when Penn State lost to Nebraska on the same day, the Buckeyes had H2H over Wisconsin and a chance to take out PSU so they were the team to beat in the Why is Wisconsin Here Division. That didn't last long.
I noted above that Ohio State was unranked coming into this game and while that is technically accurate it somewhat understates the surprise at the time. Ohio State was unranked but they were second among ORV and they came into this game off of three straight wins including the aforementioned upset of Wisconsin. It looked possible that Fickell was getting the ship righted and things appeared to be looking up but this game ended up being the first of four straight losses to close the season at 6-7. Conversely, Purdue won three of their last four to finish 7-6.
October 17, 2009, #7 Ohio State (5-1/3-0) at nr Purdue (1-5/0-2):
This was a weird Purdue team. They were a lot better than their 1-5/0-2 record would suggest but just snakebit. They'd lost in Eugene to a very good Oregon team by just two points, lost to N. Illinois by a TD, lost to a decent Notre Dame team by a FG, and lost to a pretty good Northwestern team by six. That is four one-score losses and after beating Ohio State the Boilermakers finished strong, winning four of their last six to finish 5-7 for the year. The Buckeyes were pretty much as advertised. After inexplicably losing 26-18 in West Lafayette they won their last six straight to finish 11-2/7-1 with Big11Ten and Rose Bowl Championships and #5 in the final AP Poll.
November 13, 2004, nr (but receiving votes, #29) Ohio State (6-3/3-3) at nr Purdue (5-4/1-4):
This was certainly an unusual season for the Boilermakers. They were ranked #24 in the preseason poll and climbed all the way up to #5 at 5-0/2-0 but it turned out that the wins weren't as impressive as they sounded. The five wins included Notre Dame and Penn State which sounds great but those teams finished the season 6-6 and 4-7 respectively. Then Purdue lost four straight by a combined total of just 10 points:
- 20-17 to a Wisconsin team that finished 9-3 and #17
- 16-14 to a Michigan team that won the Big11Ten and finished 9-3 and #14
- 13-10 to a Northwestern team that finished .500
- 23-21 at Kinnick to an Iowa team that finished 10-2 and #8 with a Big11Ten co-championship and a NYD Bowl win over LSU.
Bottom line, Purdue wasn't as good as the early wins sounded but they also weren't as bad as four-straight losses sounds. After beating Ohio State they annihilated the Hoosiers then lost the Sun Bowl to ASU.
Ohio State's team in 2004 was a bit weird as well. They started out atrocious. They went 3-0 OOC but the wins were far from impressive and then they opened league play with three straight losses (by 6 at Northwestern, by 11 vs Wisconsin [this is still Wisconsin's most recent win in Columbus], and by 26 at Kinnick). At that point the Buckeyes looked listless and awful but they won five of their last six including a 16 point win over Big11Ten Champion Michigan and a nice bowl win. With the lone exception of the Purdue game, the second half of Ohio State's 2004 season looked a lot like the 2005-2010 Ohio State teams that dominated the league and won the league title every year.
October 28, 2000, #12 Ohio State (6-1/3-1) at #16 Purdue (6-2/4-1):
This was a rare occasion in that both teams were ranked for the game. Purdue's loses were not terrible. They lost in South Bend by two points to a very good Notre Dame team and in State College by two points to a mess of a Penn State team. Ohio State crushed the PSU team that beat Purdue but Purdue crushed the Minnesota team that beat Ohio State. Purdue had a week off after Ohio State and they must have spent it celebrating how great they were because the week after that they got drilled in East Lansing by a mediocre Spartan team. Oddly, the Spartans were the next opponent for both teams after this game as Ohio State beat them in Columbus during Purdue's week off.
After the MSU loss, Purdue rebounded to pulverize the Hoosiers and snuck into the Rose Bowl on tiebreakers whereupon they lost to the Huskies. This loss and the earlier one to Minnesota in Glenn Mason's audition for the HC spot at his alma-mater were a big part of the end of John Cooper's tenure in Columbus.
After losing to Purdue the Buckeyes beat bad MSU and IL teams then took John Cooper's 10th (and last) loss to Michigan and got crushed in the Outback Bowl by USCe.
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Purdue has also had a lot of near wins, Holy Buckeye, the Kenny Guiton game, etc.
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Purdue has also had a lot of near wins, Holy Buckeye, the Kenny Guiton game, etc.
Please bring Kenny G home. Madison doesn't want him.
For that matter, take them all back.
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Ohio State 40, Purdue 7
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Please bring Kenny G home. Madison doesn't want him.
For that matter, take them all back.
You're not digging his smooth jazz?
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There's jazz, but it's not smooth.
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@medinabuckeye1 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1547) you made the point in another thread, but I don't think this is one of those years where OSU should worry. As you point out, a lot of Purdue wins were underrated Purdue teams playing against OSU teams that may not always be what you'd call "down years", but maybe not as strong as they are this year.
This Purdue team is worse than most of those who won, and this OSU team looks damn strong.
One thing I'll point out about 2004... That Purdue team was LEGIT. We had a hell of a defense, and the offense was positively humming. You can say we beat a Notre Dame team that didn't turn out to be that good, but we didn't just beat them. We utterly humiliated them, in South Bend.
During the Wisconsin game, I believe on the very play that produced "the fumble", Kyle Orton suffered a hip pointer. I believe he ended up suffering another on the opposite hip the next week. So for that four-game stretch of four close losses, he was playing hurt with one or two hip pointer injuries. And as you point out, three of those four losses were to teams that finished with 9 or 10 wins.
So don't sleep on that 2004 team. That team may have been better than the 2000 team that went to the Rose Bowl.
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Purdue is better than people think they are, but they still aren't good enough to deal Ohio State an upset unless something absolutely bizarre happens. Wouldn't surprise me if they score 10-17 points, but give up 40-50.
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I'd be shocked if Day hung 40 on them, simply because of his approach this year. He's burning clock in order to reduce the number of drives in hopes of keeping his players fresh for another playoff run. He did hang 42 on Minnesota, so I guess it's possible. But it would be a surprise.
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I'd be shocked if Day hung 40 on them, simply because of his approach this year. He's burning clock in order to reduce the number of drives in hopes of keeping his players fresh for another playoff run. He did hang 42 on Minnesota, so I guess it's possible. But it would be a surprise.
Minnesota has the 9th-best defense in the conference in PPG allowed. Purdue is 15th. In rush yards per game, Minnesota is 6th and again Purdue is 15th.
So it's entirely possible Purdue might give up 40 points even if OSU runs on 80% of offensive plays. (For the season, OSU rushes about 53.7% of snaps.)
OSU defensively is #1 in ppg allowed and ypg allowed too, so it's not like I'm expecting the Boilermakers to put together long sustained drives and participate in burning the clock.
The only way OSU doesn't hang 40 is if Purdue's playing against their third string offense by the start of the second half.