Purdue tries to cap comeback season with victory
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Purdue’s first bowl win in six years would give the Boilermakersa winning record and a perfect capper to coach Jeff Brohm’sfirst season.
Brohm helped engineer an impressive turnaround at Purdue, taking a team that won just nine games combined in the previous four seasons all the way to the Foster Farms Bowl Wednesday night against Arizona (75) at Levi’s Stadium, home theSan Francisco 49ers.
Awin by the Boilermakers (6-6) would give Purdue a winning record for the first time since 2011 and its first bowl victory against a major conference team since beating Washington in the 2002 SunBowl.
“It would be huge for our program and our guys,” Brohm said. “We made some progress this year. It’s meant a lot to them. It’s been a while since we’ve been in this environment. To be able to extend theseason was huge for us.”
Brohm didn’t know quite what to expect from his team as it struggled in summer practices, but he was encouraged after the team proved to be competitive in a seasonopening loss to Louisville. The Boilermakers then bouncedback from three consecutive losses by eight points or fewer midway through the season to close strong with three wins in fourgames.
The highlight of that stretch was a 24-15 win at then-No. 25 Iowa that set the stage for Purdue to become bowl eligible by beating rival Indiana in the regular-season finale.
Purdue will get another tough test in the bowl game against dynamic quarterback Khalil Tate and the Wildcats. Tate rushed for 1,353 yards and 12 touchdowns and passed for 1,289 yards and nine touchowns after taking over the team early in the fifth game of the season, which was against Colorado.
“He can make all the throws,” coach Rich Rodriguez said. “He’s a dynamic runner and he’s a big strong guy. He has as good a throwing motion, arm and touch as any quarterback I’ve had. But we can do more with our offense.”
The Boilermakers got a good warm-up for what they will see in Tate when they played 2016 Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson in the opener. They weren’t able to slow down Jackson much. He ran for 107 yards and threw for 378 more and two touchdowns to rally Louisville from a third-quarter deficit to a 35-28 win. Brohm said it could be a big help having faced a playmaker such as Jackson,a lthough he did give ac aution.
“The only part that’s discouraging is we worked all spring, all summer and all fall camp to beat Lamar Jackson and that first game he almost single-handedly beat us so it didn’t work,” Brohm said. “I think we can learn from it.”
Purdue’s strength defensively is on run defense, where the Boilermakers allowed just 3.6 yards per carry this season. Purdue held four of its final five opponents to under 100 yards with play that caught the attention of Rodriguez.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen any missed tackles,” Rodriguez said. “The big guys up front are very active, well coached. I’ve been really impressed.”