First Glance: Purdue Boilermakers

The Buckeyes are sitting at 5-0 and are heading to a venue that has not been friendly to them through recent visits.

Ross-Ade Stadium, the home of the Purdue Boilermakers, has been a house of horrors for Ohio State with the Buckeyes just 2-4 in its last six visits.

Ohio State’s last trip to the home of the Boilermakers ended in a 49-20 Purdue win that handed the 2018 Buckeyes their first loss of the year after starting things out at 7-0, including top-15 wins over TCU and Penn State.

Both teams have new head coaches and new rosters since that last game, but it just goes to show that there are no lay-ups when it comes to visiting Purdue.

In this new series, we are going to take a quick look at Ohio State’s next opponent, in a much more shallow deep-dive (saving that for Tale of the Tape). How did Purdue fare this past week? Who are a few players to watch? Let’s take our first glance.

Last game: Iowa def. purdue, 20-14

Purdue (2-4, 1-2) was never really in its game against Iowa (5-1, 2-1) but never was really out of it either because of Iowa and its allergy to offense.

Quarterback Hudson Card was 25 of 40 throwing the ball for 247 yards with a touchdown and two picks. The Purdue rushing attack was held largely in check with just 96 yards, led by Devin Mockobee and his 89 yards and a score. The number was kept under 100 yards due to sack adjusted yardage as Card was credited with minus-47 yards rushing with Iowa’s six sacks of the Purdue quarterback.

Iowa would get out to a 10-0 lead before Card would connect with TJ Sheffield on a 43-yard passing strike as part of a seven play, two-minute drive.

The Hawkeyes would run off the next 10 points to take a 20-7 lead in the opening seconds of the 4th quarter before Purdue would add a late Mockobee rushing score with three minutes left in the game to cut the margin to six points.

Purdue’s defense would hold (or Iowa’s defense would do nothing) and the Boilermakers would have a final drive with two minutes to go, but three incompletions and a sack would be all the Boilers could muster and Iowa would secure the home win.

Offensive names to know

QB – Hudson Card: He has taken every snap for the Boilermakers this season and is a 63.6-percent passer. He has six passing scores against five picks and is averaging just shy of seven yards per attempt.

Card has been sacked 14 times on the year and despite having three rushing touchdowns is not going to be classified as a dual-threat quarterback.

RB – Devin Mockobee: While the Boilermakers also have Tyrone Tracy leading the way with five rushing touchdowns, it is Mockobee that sees most of the action with 20 carries against Iowa and 87 on the season.

Mockobee has four rushing touchdowns of his own and the 6-foot, 200-pounder is not going to run away from many people with a long rush of 20 yards, but Mockobee still can pick up the tough yards when the Boilers need to move the chains.

WR – Deion Burks: Purdue has six passing touchdowns and Burks has grabbed four of them. The 5-foot-11, 195-pounder doesn’t stand out on the sideline but Burks has scored in three of Purdue’s six games including two against Fresno State.

Purdue has four pass catchers with at least 20 receptions but Burks is the one who has the most production in terms of putting points on the board.

DEfensive names to know

DB: Dillon Thieneman: You probably don’t want your safety leading the team in tackles, but Thieneman is. The freshman has 53 carries, 11 more than fellow defensive back Sanoussi Kane. Thieneman had eight tackles credited against Iowa in the most recent game.

While the number of tackles is concerning, the number of interceptions is not as Thieneman has three of Purdue’s six on the season.

LB: Kydran Jenkins: The outside linebacker leads the team with four sacks. Surprisingly enough, Purdue has recorded 18 sacks on the season.

Purdue runs a 3-4 front in its base and while Nic Scourton has three sacks of his own, many Ohio State fans will focus in on one-time Ohio State recruiting target Yanni Kalaftis.

Series history

The two teams first played in 1919, a 20-0 win by the Buckeyes.

Ohio State would not allow a point to Purdue for the first six games of the series as Ohio State would outscore Purdue by a 117-0 margin.

That streak would be snapped in 1938 when Purdue delivered a shutout of its own and would win 12-0.

Purdue’s greatest run of success against Ohio State would start in the 1940s as the Boilermakers would run off a 4-0-1 record between the years of 1943 to 1952.

Ohio State’s longest win streak is seven games, between 1989 and 1999.

The Buckeyes lead the overall series 41-15-2, as we don’t vacate games the way that the NCAA record books do.

Ohio State is currently on a modest one-game win streak in this series after a 59-31 win in 2021.

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