The Purdue Boilermakers versus the Northwestern Wildcats is a “sneaky meaningful” and “sneaky compelling” game.
All season long we’ve heard about how each program is moving in a certain direction. And that would be in opposite directions. There is no doubt that Purdue has improved this season; but how much? If they think they’ve really surpassed Northwestern in the Big Ten pecking order, now is the time to prove it. And for all the cries about the decline of Northwestern’s program this season, (and going back to last year too) the big upset in South Bend this past Saturday halted that talk.
NU now has two good “RPI wins,” if we were to use a basketball term, in the victories over Wisconsin and Notre Dame. While the Boilers are now eliminated from the postseason, NU can still easily get there- they just need this one, and the season finale over Illinois at home. On paper, totally doable. Of course, games are not played on paper
TV: ESPNU 11 AM CT
SPREAD: Purdue are 1.5 point favorites at home
Purdue Preview:
Purdue comes in ninth (out of 14) in scoring in the Big Ten, and 12th in scoring defense. Their rushing defense is 11th and their passing defense is 11th. 10th in passing offense and scoring offense…well, you get the idea. But hey, 7th in rushing offense! So there’s that.
Raheem Mostert has emerged at tailback this year. Here’s Purdue Head Coach Darrell Hazel on Mostert yesterday:
“He shared the role as the tailback this year and he’s obviously done a good job of returning kicks for us, but you can’t get enough of those types of guys in your locker room, the guys that are around them are important to them.”
Quoting SB Nation’s Hammer and Rails: “Purdue has a great chance at a win here. The Boilers have to hold on to the football and hit on a few big plays with our speed. It should, should be an easier game for our defense than in the past few weeks. I really like our chances if we get to 25 points, and even more if we hit 30.”
For more, check out his game preview here Purdue leads the series 50-27-1 and won the last meeting, which was in 2010. Purdue won the last meeting 20-17 at Northwestern, after scoring on a fourth-down run inside the 10-yard line in the final minutes.
Northwestern Preview:
Pat Fitzgerald summed up what the season has been like for the Northwestern community this season quite well following the big win at Notre Dame. Actually Fitz summated everything that’s happened going back to the offseason too:
“our young men have stuck together. I mean everybody jumped off the boat. I mean every fair weather fan that you can have jumped off the boat and they stayed on it and they persevered, and to our loyal fans we really appreciate you and. We talk a lot — we’ve been through a lot since January — about shutting out noise and distractions and, you know, we were part of a media circus in the off-season and things we had to go through and the guys stuck together and talked about being united and we went into camp and then we went through a bunch of injuries and we didn’t start the way we wanted to but the guys have persevered, and talked to them on Tuesday about a playoff mentality going back to high school.
You get to November, the weather gets nasty and that’s when champions are crowned. We’re not going to win a Big Ten Championship, we understand that.
We can still achieve our goals but we have to have our back against the wall playoff-type mentality and win and advance. We’ve advanced to another week to keep this team alive for post-season play.”
And of course he also used his new favorite catch-phrase “good, clean, American fun” a couple times when talking to multiple outlets after the big win. “Good clean American fun” could be replacing “players. formations. plays” and “stats are for losers” as his go-to phrase.
The phrase “young men” isn’t going anywhere though; so don’t worry.
Prediction: Northwestern 31, Purdue 24
It’s been a college football season in which very little has made sense. How NU plays week to week has made even less sense. One week they’re very boring; the next they’re extremely compelling. With a bowl berth on the line, look for NU to get it done.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and very often writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his features stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2