| The Boilermakers went from sitting pretty, to seemingly throwing it all away, to being back in decent shape as far as the Big Ten West race goes. No team controls their own destiny, but as far as having the easiest path that they can control, it's Purdue, closing against comfortably the two worst teams in the Big Ten. Assuming the Boilermakers do win out, all they need is for Iowa to lose once. Northwestern's only chance is to get either a team in a look ahead spot, or terrible weather, or both. Even with both, against both Penn State and Ohio State, all the Wildcats were able to do is keep it closer than expected. Granted close against Penn State or Ohio State, is probably a win against Purdue. I don't expect Purdue to be looking ahead. Over the past two year, Purdue has been 15-8, and you can't really point to a single "bad" loss. Minnesota used a backup quarterback against the Cats last week, who completed just 7 passes, with 64 yards, and still won by 28. Probably because Northwestern used four quarterbacks. Brendan Sullivan certainly wasn't good, but he was the best of the bunch, throwing for 94 yards on 9-11 passing. The other three combined to go 6-21 for 112 yards and 2 interceptions. As far as the weather goes, it's looking like 34 and windy. So that should help Northwestern, however, Purdue's run game, which has been horrific the past few years, is actually decent this year. They are 8th in the Big Ten in ypc, and 9th in ypg. That might not sound like much, but considering just what a non factor it has been recently, that is a monumental improvement. The three times this year Northwestern looked competitive was in their three biggest games, Dublin against Nebraska, then the games against Ohio State and Penn State. Fitz has seemingly gotten them up for those, it's against everyone else they look awful. I'm guessing a mid-November game against a decent Purdue doesn't qualify as the former. |