| I can't think of a worse follow up game for Purdue. They just come off a road upset of the #2 team in the nation (which apparently is their thing), ending their own 14 year ranking drought, which was the longest in the Power 5, and have to turn around and play a struggling Wisconsin team. You win? Fine, you should have. Depending on what upsets occur out there, you may even fall out of the polls with a win. You lose? Ah, same old Purdue, pull a big upset, and then regress. The last thing any Purdue fan feels towards Wisconsin is "should win." The Kyle Orton fumble game in 2004 has kicked off a 14 game winning streak in the series for Bucky, and only one game since then, a 17-9 game in 2017 was by one score. Nine of the games have been by 21+ points. The last time Purdue beat Wisconsin at home, was in 1997, Joe Tiller's first year, with true freshman Drew Brees serving as a backup to Billy Dicken. Much like those Joe Tiller teams, the explosive playmakers on offense get the press, but the defense is very underrated. Purdue has held all three Big Ten opponents to under 300 yards of total offense, ranking second in the conference with 280 ypg allowed. The one better? Wisconsin. By about 30 yards per game. As you might expect, being 2nd in total defense leads to Purdue being 2nd in scoring defense. Wisconsin being 1st, by a wide margin, has resulted in them being...fifth in scoring defense. Simply because they are on the field all the time, they take over in terrible position, and hell, some of those points they didn't even actually allow. The one Big Ten team to score on them was Michigan. They added a garbage touchdown late, but in getting out to a 31-10 lead, Michigan's six scoring drives covered an average of 31.5 yards. The longest started at their own 41. It's not even just a matter of turnovers. The offense simply isn't efficient. George Karlaftis has put himself firmly into the discussion as the best lineman in the conference, that it appeared Aidan Hutchinson was running away with. Wisconsin has to stay on schedule, and give Graham Mertz the chance to use play action. That Boilermaker front is better at getting after the quarterback than stopping the run, and Mertz' ails aren't fixed. He threw for 112 yards against Army last week, and completed just 4 passes for 54 yards to receivers. Purdue won't even pretend what they are going to try and do. Get the ball to David Bell. They proved last week, against a good Iowa defense, that they don't care if you know it's coming. Seeing tight end Payne Durham get involved again last week was nice, but I don't know how you finish with 15 yards on 5 receptions. |