When IU and Purdue last met in Ross-Ade Stadium in 2015, Purdue had nothing left to play for except ruin the hopes of the Hoosiers getting to their first bowl game since 2007. Despite the Boilers’ efforts, IU was able to win and advance to the New Era Pinstripe Bowl.
Between then and Saturday, IU won its fourth straight Old Oaken Bucket and advanced to yet another bowl game.
When the Hoosiers returned to West Lafayette though, the stakes were different, as Purdue’s last hope for advancing to a bowl game in head coach Jeff Brohm’s first season was to beat IU, and IU needed the win to guarantee a ticket to its third consecutive bowl game — and to prevent the door from slamming shut on its break through goals.
With the weight of missed opportunities — the overtime loss to Michigan, the close loss at Michigan State and the fumbled loss to Maryland — resting on the rivalry game, IU dropped it, losing 31-24 and finishing with a losing record for the first time since 2014.
“It’s a different type of pain,” freshman wide receiver Taysir Mack said about losing the Bucket and a guaranteed bowl bid. “I didn’t understand the hurt until I came into the locker room and saw those guys’ faces that couldn’t come back. Like living with Rich and with Simmie. Those are my guys. And to see them cry, to see them hurt, it killed me inside because I felt like I could’ve done more. I felt like we all could’ve done more.”
Mack continued and said he believed the offense could have performed better, that the fate of the game relied on its offense if IU was going to win the game.
But from the first play of the game, the offense struggled. Senior quarterback Richard Lagow forced a pass into heavy traffic and it was intercepted by Purdue and returned to the IU 5-yard line. On the next play, Purdue receiver Jackson Anthrop took a sweep into the endzone for the first score of the game.
IU would eventually force a fumble that led to a Simmie Cobbs touchdown and a 64-yard Ricky Brookins rush to set up a field goal. Other than those two drives, which IU could have built on the long run in Purdue territory, IU went 3-and-out five times in the first half and even punted on a 12-play drive.
Nothing was going for the Hoosiers, and it wasn’t anything the Purdue defense was doing, Lagow said.
“Maybe a couple things, but nothing huge,” Lagow said about Purdue’s defense presenting different looks than on film. “It just kind of came down to us not making plays.”
The big plays were few and far between in the first half for the IU offense, but even when it did make those plays in the second half, the drives couldn’t follow through.
In a third quarter drive, Cobbs made catches of 13 and 11 yards and helped push IU into Purdue territory, but two incomplete passes forced IU into third-and-long. A Ricky Brookins dump-off couldn’t get the first down, and the Hoosiers punted from the Purdue 47-yard line.
That is one example of several drives that stalled in similar fashion, as IU punted the ball nine times before needing to go to a 4-down strategy in the fourth quarter.
This occurred while Purdue running back Markell Jones ran the ball 31 times for 217 yards, carrying the Purdue offense throughout the majority of the game. And to make matters worse for the IU defense’s stamina, 11 non-scoring offensive drives took less than three minutes off the game clock.
“It was offense,” Mack said. “We didn’t do what we should’ve done. The defense got tired and it was on us, and I feel like we could’ve contributed way more. We did do our thing toward the end but it was just too late.”
Even when the IU offense did drive in the fourth quarter, it still couldn’t avoid mistakes, as a 9-play, 63-yard drive ended when Lagow missed his man in the endzone on Purdue’s 8-yard line.
When the kickoff team recovered an onside kick after a quick touchdown drive, IU’s offense couldn’t pull through and eventually went 4-and-out, leading the game to ride on a failed onside kick in the last minute of regulation.
While Lagow finished with 373 yards on 32-of-60 passing and Mack (132) and Cobbs (105) each finished with more than 100 yards receiving and one receiving touchdown, the offense was stagnant throughout most of the game.
Morgan Ellison also left the game in an ambulance with an undisclosed injury.
“A lot of special men are in that locker room hurting, and I’m hurting with them,” Tom Allen said. “We just made too many mistakes early on to overcome them.”
----
• Talk about it inside The Hoops Forum or The Football Forum
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @IndianaRivals
• Like us on Facebook.
