The Curse of Pizza

Last December, all was right in the world.

The Big 10 had 12 teams, the Big 12 had 10 teams, The Big East didn't stretch to the West Coast and Purdue was preparing to go to a crappy bowl to play a MAC team, as Danny Hope was secure with his new contract.

Now, the B1G is about to become a 14 team conference, the Big East is about to become no conference at all and Purdue's head football coach seems to be scratching and clawing for another day in God's country.

Things change quickly in the college football world.

Around a year ago, Western Michigan boasted of a few NFL-level players and an offense that looked like it could hang with about anyone.  This season, Western Michigan's team was 4-8...so their AD decided it was time to move forward.

WMU's coach, Cubit, had been there 8 seasons and had a record over .500...he was coming off of a bowl season to boot. But all that wasn't enough to save his job...at Western Michigan.  Does anyone catch my drift here?

In this era of college football, winning about half of your games and going to crappy bowls isn't good enough.  It's not good enough for a MAC program, and it surely isn't good enough for Purdue.

The problem with winning around half of your games, to me at least, is it saps all emotion and intensity from the fan base...especially if that's the case season, after season, after season.  Purdue has been stuck in this quagmire for a while...and we've written about it a time or two, I believe.

Even if your sister's a really good kisser, it's not a good practice to lock lips with her time and again, but with a 6-6 record (at best) on the horizon, Purdue's football program's sister has her lip gloss on and is ready to go.

The end of Tiller's time at Purdue wasn't too fun.  Saturday's at Ross-Ade had become shells of what they'd used to be.  If Purdue was playing a crappy defense, the first down chant would be the anthem, but when good defenses came calling, the first down chant became the equivalent of the fight song after a TD- something to savor and enjoy. The same is the case now.

Purdue's offense is a shell of what it's been over Hope's time at Purdue.  When "The Duke" was at QB and Keith Smith was in the game, Purdue might chuck it around or might have had Smith pass it.  When Ralph Bolden was health and Purdue's o-line was consistent, Bolden and Shavers would gash defenses with regularity.  Now, it takes really bad defenses to allow Bolden and Shavers to get loose, not inventive play-calling...and Purdue QBs don't regularly pass for over 200 yards versus anyone.

Please understand, this is no indictment of the guys on the field.  Saturday is a great illustration of that- Marve complete's nearly 3/4 of his passes and his numbers weren't anything to write home about.  He was doing what he could, taking what was given to him...and sticking to the gameplan.  Isn't that what Hope and Nord have always wanted of him?  Good for Marve for being a good soldier.  Very bad for Hope and Nord for not giving Marve a chance to showcase what he can really do.

On defense, things have looked pretty good the last few weeks...but Iowa and Illinois' offenses are offensive.  This week that'll change as IU's offense will surely test Purdue's DBs and front.  Wilson will remind us what innovation on the offensive side of the ball looks like...but his defense is atrocious, so it might not matter.

But IU on Saturday has become a pretty fun place to be- IU fans saw some things they didn't expect this season and have a reason to believe things are getting better. Our Boilers, conversely, were sadly predictable this season...and they'll lose huge chunks of their firepower, on both sides of the ball, to graduation this offseason.  Like Coach Hope told us, this was a team like none other he'd had at Purdue and the potential was there for a good season.  That potential has now been watered down to a mediocre bowl play-in game with IU.

So a few weeks ago when Hope started blaming injuries for the state of things on campus, I couldn't stop my blood from reaching the Boiling point.  This wasn't '10...Purdue wasn't playing a third or fourth string QB and second and third string RBs.  Purdue had the nicks and cuts that the B1G grinder gives you...but in spite of ridiculous rotations in multiple positions, his coaching staff wasn't ready for the adversity.

On top of that, Hope has now badmouthed his coaching mentor on two different occasions to the media...he's also called Purdue fans and ticket holders losers and people of low character.  Now, we always have liked Hope as a person.  Better yet, we've always liked what he's let us see.  In person, he's been gracious and conversational and to the media he always seemed happy to be the head coach.  That's not the same any more. The problems seem to now outweigh the advantages of coaching the B1G for Hope...so, soon, he'll have to lie in the bed he's made.

Coach Nord has always been a bristly guy...but this season, he's coached a stale offense and continued to defend the methodology while telling us that we didn't see what we thought we saw.  I don't wish the man ill...in fact, I hope his back is healthy enough to coach someplace else next season.

Danny Hope saw last season's Little Caesars' Bowl as a stepping stone for his Boilers on the way to greater things.  Turns out, that bowl game might have been a transition for both coaching staffs in the game as they prepared to exit.

Staying Alive: Boilers Win in Champaign

They dug deep...they persevered...they fought through boredom and the urge to go to the hardware store.  I'm of course speaking of all of the Purdue fans who stayed awake for watched the throwback first half between an awful Illinois team, on Senior day, and a not-too-great Purdue team in their final stretch.

Danny Hope said that, in spite of being in the building, Gary Nord DID NOT call plays.  But, he was wearing a headset, taking notes and clearly had some effect on the Purdue offense for much of the game. The gameplan we saw versus Iowa was no where to be found...in its place, an array of draw plays, screen passes, and, of course, first down wheel routes were on display in the storied stadium that Red Grange built (not literally).

Sarcastic cheering, even in photos, is pretty funny.

At the end of the first half, it was 6-3 in favor of the good guys...and the game had all of the excitement of a 6-3 game.  But, Purdue was given the gift of two turnovers on Illinois' side of the field and another not too deep in Purdue territory...those three turnovers, of course, led to ZERO points for Purdue.

At the end of the first quarter though, Purdue had one yard passing and eight yards of total offense.  Those stats are absolutely legit.  And on the opposite side of the ball, the fighting Illini had 29 yards of passing and not many yards rushing.  It wasn't that these two defenses were just firing off of the ball and doing everything right.  Oh no, this was an exhibition of two of the least-inventive and most-boring play-callers, not in the nation, but in the history of college football.  We know Illinois' OC was one of them...I'm just not positive who was the guy calling the game for our Boilers.

In the second half, it started out similarly, but a few minutes into the third quarter, Akeem Hunt broke free on a wheel route in which there were no Illinois defenders in the stadium, it seemed.  He scored easily as Purdue's linemen pulled and couldn't find anyone to hit for about 25 yards.

Hunt's 63 yard catch led him to lead all Boilers in receiving for the game...sure, there were a few passes thrown and caught by Hope's squad, but most were for around three or four yards.  Marve finished the game with a solid outing and utilized the gameplan given to him as well as possible while completing nearly 70% of his passes for 173 yards.  But, he kept the first touchdown drive alive with his lone ACL as he scrambled in a pocket that was pretty non-existant all day long.

Badass

One thing the OC did well was feed the RBs, especially in the closing 15 minutes of the game.  Shavers ran hard all game, and finished with 99 yards on 21 carries.  Cottom had a couple hard runs as the change up back after Bolden went down...and Bolden was ripping it up until he was hurt after a 63 yard run. He finished with 93 yards on 7 carries.  But during the big run, it looked like he re-tore the fourth right ACL that he's had.  In fact, I was pretty positive that he had done it.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  He tweaked his hamstring...but instead of running out of bounds after the injury, he hobbled about 45 yards with a bum right wheel.  The dude is a badass...always has been, always will be.

Purdue's defense kept Illinois in front of them for the most part, but Scheelhaase did what he does v. Purdue as he scrambled for a ton of yards as his pocket collapsed time and again.  He led the Illini with 76 yards rushing to go along with his 160 yards passing.  Scheelhaase will graduate this season, but might take advantage of the stupid NCAA rule that allows players to transfer to another school if their current grass isn't green enough school doesn't offer the grad program they want to pursue.  I'm pretty sure Illinois doesn't have what he wants to study.

"Would they fire me
after one season?"

Purdue's defense allowed 17 points on the day, and just 333 yards of total offense.  That's pretty damned respectable in this era of high point totals and mileage, not yardage.  But this Illinois team is unconventional.  They don't like scoring (they've scored 17 or fewer points in all of their B1G games) and they really don't like winning much either...they're now 2-9 (0-7) with an extremely weak schedule that didn't help them out too much.

The Seniors on defense did play big though, it seemed that Maci, Johnson, Ezenwa, Charlot and of course, Short were around the ball all day.

The ST units shined today.  Webster punted well...in fact had a huge 60 yarder late in the game that gave Illinois a very long field after Anthrop downed the Illini on the five.  McCartney was 2-for-2 while kicking field goals and 2-for-2 while kicking points after.  And Hunt averaged a solid 22 yards/return on KO returns. The little things matter...and they especially mattered in this 20-17 victory today.

It's funny, there are some Purdue fans who wished Purdue to lose today in order to insure that Hope would be gone at the end of the season...but we believe the damage is already done regardless of what happens and has happened the last two weeks.  The facts are still the facts, and Iowa, Illinois and IU are three very bad teams...heck, a few of the good teams in the conference that kicked the hell out of our Boilers aren't even that good.  And the season ticket sales have spoken loudly to the Athletic Department.  All of that said, I don't know a Purdue fan, I mean a real Purdue fan that can legitimately say they want to see IU beat Purdue in Ross-Ade on the Senior Day of Short, Marve, Shavers, Johnson, Bolden and others.

My wife and I will be at the game next Saturday.  Like many of you out there, she hasn't been to a game in two years...so I'm hoping she gets to see Purdue beat the hell out of IU for old time's sake.

I don't agree that a 6-6 record in this era of football is at all special or noteworthy, as Hope told us it would be last week. What I do know is that having a losing record, with this talented of a team and this weak of a schedule, would be an abomination.  Plus, a crappy bowl is much better than the Oaken Bucket becoming a quazi bowl game.

I'm looking forward to sending the Seniors off with a win...and if IU's QB passes for 600 yards, I really don't give a damn.  As we saw today in Happy Valley, and a few years ago in Ross-Ade, eye-popping passing stats are worth little when they lead to a loss.

Go Boilers, beat little sister like a rented mule.

Send them home sad, Seniors.