AIDAN O’CONNELL’S conscience has finally been cleared, along with those of four former members of the Purdue football team who opted out of playing in the 2023 Citrus Bowl to prepare for that season’s NFL draft. Their absence left Purdue undermanned and exposed, which resulted in a 63–7 beatdown at the hands of the Louisiana State University Tigers. It was the worst defeat the Boilermakers ever suffered … that is, until Notre Dame rolled into West Lafayette on September 14 and administered a 66–7 thrashing on Purdue that started on the opening drive and ended with the final horn. The only thing the Boilers won against the Fighting Irish was the coin toss.
On the other side of the country, IU football took a struggling UCLA team to the woodshed in a 42–14 whooping in the Rose Bowl and looked very good in the process. The road win for the Hoosiers—UCLA’s worst home opening loss in history—advanced IU’s record to 3–0 under first-year head coach Curt Cignetti and 1–0 in the Big Ten.
The Hoosiers are poised to burst onto the national scene, evidenced by a shoutout from Monday Night Football’s Troy Aikman (a UCLA alum) and Joe Buck (an IU alum), with Buck singing the IU fight song in Aikman’s face during the broadcast.
With Cignetti’s arrival and the solid, talented team he assembled in a short amount of time, the balance of power in the state of Indiana between the two Big Ten schools has shifted south to Bloomington. It will be the Boilermakers who face the uphill task of trying to improve.
The cornerstone of this IU team is quarterback Kurtis Rourke, who performs at a very high level. The senior from Oakville, Ontario, Canada, was in complete control of the offense in the Rose Bowl game, throwing for 307 yards and four touchdowns. Indiana wasn’t perfect by any means, losing two players to disqualification due to separate targeting calls and penalties, but the offense was able to make up the difference and score basically at will on the Bruins.
After three games this season, the Hoosiers have scored 150 points. Last season, it took them nine games to hit that mark. Cignetti’s hiring is the nightmare every Boilermaker fan fears, helping IU gain plenty of reasons to gloat over their bitter home-state rivals. This coach will produce great results and reap Oaken Buckets of joy for the IU faithful.
As badly as Notre Dame fans felt after an earlier home loss to Northern Illinois University, the Purdue game was just what the doctor ordered. In fact, an inside source reveals that many of the ND (and, to be truthful, Purdue) fans had enough by halftime and left Ross-Ade Stadium to get an early start home. Purdue fans like me were feeling just OK following a 0–49 August 31 victory against Indiana State University, but after this “contest,” the accumulated confidence level is about as low as a snake’s belly in a wagon wheel rut, with many of us thinking, “My Saturday afternoons just opened up.”
This game, so totally dominated by the Irish, illustrates the vast difference between the talent attracted by a perennial national contender like Notre Dame and a team like Purdue, struggling to stay relevant in a league where the overall talent is passing them by. As big as Purdue’s players looked against ISU, that’s how small they appeared against ND.
The offensive and defensive lines for Purdue were mere papier mâché for the Irish to break through. Quarterback Hudson Card, with a 24 of 25 passing record the week prior, had mere seconds before three defenders pinched him in the pocket. The defense’s ability to own and control both lines made for a long afternoon for Card and the Boilers.
Missing from Purdue’s game was any hint of solid fundamental football. Time and time again, defenders bounced off the thighs of Irish running backs, who amassed 362 yards and six touchdowns that day. And here I thought Purdue head coach Ryan Walters’ schtick was defense.
Borrowing a trope from the children’s fable “Jack and the Beanstalk,” the harp has left West Lafayette and now resides in Bloomington. All that is left to do is to bring the bucket along with it.
