Purdue-Penn St

Purdue coach Joe Tiller often refers to his offense as “basketball on grass.” To use basketball terms to describe how it’s been lately for Purdue, the Boilers are having trouble getting good shots and when they do, they’re shooting airballs.

That was evident again today in a 12-0 loss at home to Penn St. The biggest problem seems to be the inaccuracy of sophomore QB Curtis Painter. Today, Painter was 22-39 for 178 yards and two interceptions. One of those killed the Boilers’ best scoring chance of the day late in the first quarter. Shortly after threading the needle on a pass over the middle to Dustin Keller, Painter threw five yards behind Selwyn Lymon and right into the arms of Penn St LB Dan Conner at the Nittany Lions’ 18-yard line. If the pass would have been completed to Lymon, he would have scored. The Boilers would never seriously threaten again.

Like last week, Painter simply missed a lot of open receivers. He would typically overthrow them or lead them too far on out or crossing routes. He also didn’t get much help when he was on target, as there were several drops by the Boiler receivers.

Both teams struggled in the passing game with the high winds. Neither QB was able to do much throwing downfield. The difference was that the Penn St defense was more fundamentally sound, especially with tackling, than the Purdue defense was. If the Boilers had about ten more players who can tackle they would have a pretty good defense. Nittany Lion RB Tony Hunt alone broke a few dozen feeble Purdue tackle attempts.

The twelve points scored against the Boiler defense were a bit deceiving because of its inability to get off the field. It seemed that whenever Purdue had a favorable third down situation or make a good stop on a third down play, Penn St would end up converting anyway, often just by the length of the football. The Lions were 10-19 on third downs and converted a fourth down as well. That allowed PSU to dominate time of possession 35:22 to 24:48. Penn St had four drives of 12 plays or more, three of which led to scores. Purdue only had one drive all day of more than seven plays.

Player of the Game: Tony Hunt had 31 carries for 142 yards and the one touchdown scored in the game. Hunt was a battering ram against the Boiler defense, running through and over hapless Purdue defenders all day. It was never more evident on the touchdown drive to start the fourth quarter, on which Hunt had 8 carries for 55 yards.

Quote: Purdue coach Joe Tiller was asked whether he would consider switching quarterbacks. He said, “I have a lot of faith in Curtis. The guy who feels the worst about losing the game today is Curtis Painter. I’m going to have to do a little counseling this week to get him going and not feel like it’s just him. He’s got the weight of the entire team on his shoulders right now.”

Notes: Today was Penn State’s first shut out since 2002 against Northwestern…Purdue was shut out for the first time since Notre Dame beat the Boilers 35-0 in 1996, which was prior to Tiller taking over at Purdue. In fact, Tiller had never been shut out in 15 years as a head coach…Purdue had averaged 448 yards per game entering play, but has now been held below 300 yards two straight games.