Purdue’s Track To Success: Oregon State

Good morning and happy game day! Let’s take some of that Purdue Gold original colored Listerine and wash last weekend’s bad taste out of our collective mouth.

Your Purdue Boilermakers have a primetime game in a trip out west to face the Beavers of Oregon State. Both teams are coming off of big losses to teams they don’t get historically along with, so this matchup will serve as a huge rebound (wrong sport, sorry) for whichever team comes out on top.

The game will kick off at 8:30 ET in Corvallis, Oregon. One of those strange games broadcast on The CW, but still a primetime slot, baby!

Without reliving last week, in what areas do the Boilermakers need to tighten up in order to earn a big road win against one of the two best teams in the Pac-2?

Offense:

This is a painfully obvious one. Last week, Purdue’s offensive line had a dreadful performance. It goes without saying that you can’t give up that many sacks, you can’t look so disorganized, and a team is statistically very unlikely to win any game with well under 200 yards of total offense.

If Card can have even a little more time to go through his progressions…if Mockobee and Love can have just a little extra space, a little crease…this team has enough skill position players to keep drives going, score some points, and ideally not punt 10 times in a single game.

I’m not gonna sit here and say these guys are a bunch of bums or whatever. The main component of my disappointment is that I know they’re capable of allowing the team’s playmakers to make plays. Any showing greater than a C+ from the offensive line and I think the Boilers can out-skill position the Beavers in a tough road environment.

Another thing: Oregon State did not handle a pass-heavy Oregon team very well at all last week. If you can give Card more time to throw, that would be the one area I could see us truly exploiting the Beavers’ defense.

Defense:

Secondary play has to be better. Last week was a big yikes against a quarterback more known for being harder to tackle than for his passing. I expected better at safety specifically given how Ryan Walters made his name.

Tackle. So many missed tackles. I’m really at a loss of words when it comes to every facet of the defense that needs to improve from last week; it truly is just about every fundamental area of the defensive game. Out-talented or not, anything better than a B- effort is both welcome and encouraged.

I also request more pressure and gap-plugging from the defensive line. They simply looked outworked and eventually exhausted last week.

Special Teams:

The punting actually was impressive last week despite the previously mentioned TEN PUNTS OH MY GOSH YOU SHOULD NEVER NEED TO PUNT TEN TIMES.

So, no real suggestions here, but I am looking forward to seeing what kind of kicking situations into which freshman Spencer Porath is placed. He has not attempted a field goal this season since replacing Ben Freehill (who has been great on kickoffs thus far), but has gone a perfect 8/8 in PAT attempts. Eight consecutive points to start your college kicking career is not too shabby.

I’m just curious to see what head coach Ryan Walters will consider Porath’s range to be once the Boilermakers enter No Man’s Land just past midfield. I’d like to see what the new leg can do as none of us have really seen said leg tested yet.

I suppose I do have one suggestion: if a drive stalls, make sure it’s in field goal range because, again, I’m curious. Selfish reasons.

In Summary:

Yeah, last week was ugly, but let’s not hang our heads about the past. It happened. Oh well. The Boilermakers’ work is cut out for them and we’ll just have to see what they clearly worked on in practice this week.

It’ll be a less-than-easy task on the road, but I, for one, have faith.

Enjoy the day, eat some good food, enjoy your company, maybe get a nap in if you’re in the Eastern time zone, and buckle up. I doubt we’ll see anything less than a Purdue team motivated by being kind of mad at itself.