Reminds me of the Pitt game. Missed opportunities all over the place. Monstrous amount of penalties. Of course, I don’t recall us being this bad in the defensive secondary (and overall on D) against Pitt, but maybe it’s recency bias kicking-in.
In the end, a better record than I expected (I thought we’d struggle to win 5 games). Regardless, not a good way to end things. Trying two deep passes instead of running two plays to set up a closer try at the game-winning FG in regulation seems like it was a bad call - but then again, how many open receivers did we badly miss running deep behind their DBs in this game? It felt like Milton was back at QB.
With Alontae out, it looked like we forgot how to cover in the secondary. Some bad tackling — Like really, really bad tackling in quite a few spots. Lining up and not having the strength to convert 4th and shorts. Penalties. Penalties. Penalties.
Winners win … and losers lose. We are still a team that finds ways to lose when the spotlight is on and we have a chance to send a message about our trajectory as a program in front of a national audience. Just like all the announcers talked about was how “depleted” Purdue was (while pretty much ignoring our shortage of scholarship players and our key players that were out), all that anyone is going remember is that we found a way to lose again. Not that the officials missed a blatant PI at the end of regulation or that the official made a terrible call to take our TD off the board in OT.
It was a tough night. I still think Heupel is a good one, but tonight was not even close to good. Never should have been in a position to let bad officiating to sway the outcome. A pretty deflating way to end things this year. No one should be ok with this performance, but I’m hoping to see something better next season.
