The Boilermakers are completely different now, for their own good.
While Ohio will likely aim to achieve similar results this season as it did last season, Purdue will not.
Ohio will head to Purdue on Friday for an 8 p.m. game at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana. Under new head coach Jeff Brohm, the Boilermakers are poised to outperform their Big Ten West division basement-dwelling season from a year ago.
“I think they’re all encouraged with Jeff leading their program,” Ohio coach Frank Solich said. “And they (have) fans that are hungry for success. I think they’re going to turn out en masse. The night game, new (stadium) lights, it all adds up to being a wild football game. I’m sure the atmosphere will be great.”
Less than a week after Ohio stifled Hampton for its first shutout since Nov. 10, 2015, Ohio will face a much taller task with Purdue. Led by Brohm, who coached Western Kentucky to the top scoring offense in the NCAA last year (45.5 points per game), Purdue is poised for an offensive breakout.
Solich watched film from 2016 of the Brohm-led Hilltoppers against Miami (OH) and said there was a lot of “imagination” in how they attacked the defense. The tape showed a reverse on a kickoff return, as well as a fake reverse on another return.
“You’re gonna get some things that you haven’t prepared for,” Solich said.
For one, Brohm has opted not to name a starting quarterback before the game, according to a report by “Gold and Black,” the Rivals.com site for Purdue. The Boilermakers deployed a system of two quarterbacks last week and are expected to do so again.
Ohio also uses two quarterbacks, Quinton Maxwell and Nathan Rourke, but the Bobcats identify Maxwell as the starter.
Purdue has lost eight-straight games dating back to mid-October. But their week one loss this season was to nationally-ranked Louisville — led by reigning Heisman trophy winner Lamar Jackson — and the Boilermakers had a lead in the game’s final 10 minutes.
“Just from the one game that we watched that they had last week, they try to do everything possible on defense,” Ohio running back A.J. Ouellette said. He added that the Boilermaker linebackers, led by 260-pound senior Ja’Whaun Bentley, look “crazy athletic for even how big they are.”
Despite the short week — the Bobcats have two this season — Ohio should be well rested against Purdue. Solich said his team didn’t sustain any injuries against Hampton that would keep players out of the lineup. And before the 59-0 drubbing against the Pirates ended, all the first-string Bobcats (and some second-stringers) were on the bench.
Game planning aside, the natural grass at Ross-Ade Stadium is something for the Bobcats to keep in mind. They rarely play on grass (most recently at Tennessee early last season), but there’s no proper way to simulate the field conditions ahead of time — not even by practicing on grass this week, which Solich opted not to do.
“Their grass there is going to be different than our grass here,” he said. “And so you might be opening yourself up to a can of worms and possible injuries and those kind of things if you just jump on our grass for right now.”
