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Gold and Black Radio: Assessing Purdue football at the bye week

by: Dub Jellison9 hours agodubjellison
Screenshot 2025-09-23 at 11.13.11 AM
GoldandBlack.com staff discuss Purdue's loss to Notre Dame and more.


In our Sept. 23 edition, GoldandBlack.com’s Tom Dienhart and Dub Jellison plus host Derek Schultz look back at Purdue’s loss to Notre Dame and assess where the Boilermakers are at the bye week.

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Checking under the hood: Four items on Purdue’s off-week to-do list

Purdue is off this week, but Barry Odom won’t be headed to Aruba to catch some rays and nosh on Mahi-mahi.

There’s work to be done. A lot of work to be done … roll-up-your-sleeves, flip-your-ball-cap-backward work. The program is 2-2, skidding into the off-week on a two-game losing streak with a pivotal October looming that figures to significantly shape the direction of the season with four seemingly winnable games.

What should Odom and Co., work on? A to-do list:

1 – Pound the rock

From pee-wee to the NFL, football is won in the trenches. And Purdue isn’t winning there enough.

Especially troublesome is a seeming inability to muscle up and run between the tackles. Truth be told, “tough running” has been a persistent issue for years in West Lafayette, absent from Purdue’s “cradle of quarterbacks” football culture for some time.

Purdue sits second-to-last in the Big Ten in rushing (106.25 ypg). The 3.1 yards per carry ranks last. The long run? It’s 26 yards … by a quarterback. No running back has a jaunt longer than 17 yards.

You get the picture. The offense needs better balance.

An inability to run only exasperates issues in the red zone, when the field is shrunk. Those short passes that act as de facto runs between the 20s no longer are as effective inside the 20-yard line.

There’s is no hiding in the red zone, where only the big, strong, tough and determined survive.

That brings us to the o-line. Is there enough size and strength? Purdue hit the portal hard for linemen, but just two arrivals start: LG Jalen St. John and C Bradyn Joiner. Is the right side of the line good enough with G Ethan Trent and T Bakyne Coly? Will we see more of Jude McCoskey at RT? Is Marc Nave ready to help at guard? Hank Purvis?

This has to be figured out.

More: Checking under the hood: Four items on Purdue’s off-week to-do list

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