Number Crunching: Purdue-Nebraska week

A look at some of the good, and some of the not so good numbers surrounding Purdue football for the week of the Homecoming tilt vs. Nebraska.

0

Previous Purdue Homecoming games versus Nebraska. The Cornhuskers will be the 18th different Boilermaker opponent for the annual event. Purdue has faced Wisconsin more times on Homecoming (21), with Illinois (20) a close second. The only other teams Purdue has faced 10 or more times are Northwestern (15), Iowa (15) and Minnesota (10).

<56

Purdue’s 56 passing yards against Oregon State were their fewest in a game since October 2010 when they actually threw for less than that twice : 52 yards in a 44-10 loss to Illinois and 47 yards in a 20-17 win against Northwestern. Sean Robinson was the quarterback against the Illini and later turned into a pretty good linebacker. Rob Henry was the quarterback in the Boilermakers’ upset of the ranked (coaches poll) Wildcats.

132 of 134

2. The Boilers offense this year has been plagued by short drives and poor time of possession. The Boilers rank 132nd of 134 FBS teams in terms of offensive plays per game with 54. For reference, Wisconsin is No. 1in the Big Ten with a whole 20 more plays per game this year (74 per game).

5 and 0

Coach Jim Young’s record on Homecoming during his tenure at Purdue. He joins Joe Tiller (9-3 .750), Noble Kizer (6-1 .857), Jack Mollenkopf (8-5-1 .607) to win five or more games on Homecoming.

11 and 4

Purdue is allowing only 11 pass completions per game (4th in the nation) and is actually the team that has faced the fewest pass attempts per game in the entire country to this point, with opponents tossing the ball just 18 times per game against them. This is counteracted by the Boilers allowing a whopping 269 rush yards per game, third-worst in the country and over 100 yards worse than the next team in the Big Ten (USC, 163.3 rushing yards against per game).

20

Career sack total for Kydran Jenkins , just the eighth Boilermaker in history to record 20 or more career sacks.

0 (again)

The Boilermaker defense is one of only two teams in the country to have not forced a turnover all year, the other team being Troy, coached by former Purdue interim coach Gerad Parker. Every other defense in the Big Ten has at least two turnovers. At this point last year, the Boilermaker defense had already forced 5 turnovers. It’s the first time since at least 2000 that Purdue hasn’t forced any turnovers through three games.

0 (a third time)

5. Purdue is also one of only three teams in the country to have not made, and only one of two in the country (Navy) to have not even attempted, a field goal at this point in the season. This is in part due to Purdue’s inability to even get the ball into the red zone, reaching that point only 2.5 times per game. For reference, in 2022 Purdue reached the red zone 4.4 times per game.

-10

Purdue is a 10-point home underdog to Nebraska. It’s only the second time since 2018 that the Boilers are 10-plus point home underdogs (the other being last year’s 41-7 loss to Ohio State). The Boilers are 3-16 since 1997 as 10-plus point home underdogs, their wins being 2018’s 49-20 win over Ohio State (12-point underdogs), 2009’s 26-18 win over Ohio State (12-point underdogs), and 1997’s 28-17 win over Notre Dame (19.5-point underdogs).

Updated Purdue football stats

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