Number Crunching: Championship Week

On3 imageby:Alan Karpick•11/29/22•

AlanKarpick

Note: As he has done all year, GoldandBlack.com alum Griffin Herdegen provided the research.

0-30

Purdue opened up as a 16.5-point underdog to Michigan in the Big Ten title game. In their last thirty games as a 16-point-or-more underdog, the Boilers haven’t secured a win – they’re 0-30 in that stretch. Their biggest upset win (based on point spread) of the last 25 years came in the 1998 Alamo Bowl when the unranked Boilers took on No. 3 Kansas State as 14-point dogs and won 37-34. The Boilermakers’ last upset of that magnitude came came a year earlier when, as a 19.5-point underdog, it defeated Notre Dame 28-17 in coach Joe Tiller’s first season of 1997.

70-31

Purdue is unranked in the AP Poll – this marks only the second time an unranked team has played in the Big Ten championship game – the only other time being in 2012, when the unranked, third-place, 7-5 Wisconsin Badgers qualified due to Ohio State and Penn State receiving postseason bans. Wisconsin went on to win, 70-31, against No. 14 Nebraska. This week, Purdue is also the only unranked team playing in a Power 5 championship game.

16 and 16

Aidan O’Connell has put together quite the career at Purdue thus far – he’s completed 66.6% of his 1192 passes for 8853 yards, 65 touchdowns and 28 interceptions. Only 16 other QBs have accomplished those stats or better since this century – Will Rogers of Mississippi State and Hendon Hooker of Tennessee (by way of Virginia Tech) are the only other active players that match O’Connell. No other Big Ten QB has matched O’Connell’s stats since at least 2000.

WR Charlie Jones (Getty Images)

15+

Charlie Jones this year has consistently been the spark Purdue needs – 97 receptions (3rd in the nation), 1199 receiving yards (5th), and 12 TDs (t-3rd) – all Big Ten bests. To match the Big Ten records for each of these stats, Jones needs to record, per game, 12 receptions (which he has done twice this year), 54 yards (which he’s done ten times this year), and two touchdowns (which he’s done three times this year). 

Third and 3

Cory Trice’s game-sealing pick-six against the Hoosiers marked the Boilermakers’ third on the season, which Purdue has only done twice since 2000. The Gold and Black’s 289 interception return yards are the third-most in school history – they’d need 64 yards in their next two games to pass the record held by the 1957 team (which did so in only nine games). In the 19 games that Purdue has had a pick-six since 2000, Purdue is 14-5.

4 no more

Purdue has not beaten Michigan since 2009, currently riding a four-game losing streak. That drought trails only Penn State, who is on a 10-game winning streak against Purdue since 2005 and Wisconsin, who has dominated Purdue since its 16-game winning streak against the Boilermakers began in 2004,

Brycen Hopkins scored Purdue’s lone TD against Michigan in 2017 (Tom Campbell photo)

7 of 9

Purdue’s last game against Michigan was on a sweltering September afternoon in 2017, when a promising start, capped by a 10-7 halftime lead by Purdue over the then-No. 8 Wolverines, gave way to a 28-10 second-half smothering by Michigan. Strong second halves have been a signature of this year’s Wolverines, as well – they’ve scored more points in the second half than the first in seven of their nine conference games – and in the other two, they scored the same in both halves.

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28

Purdue’s 28 sacks this year are the most for a Boilermaker team since Brohm’s first season in 2017, when the defense managed 29 sacks, a number likely to be exceeded by this year’s team in its two remaining games. Interestingly, the Boilers’ tackle-for-loss numbers are relatively low – 60 on the year ranks third-lowest this century, second-lowest ignoring the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

3 and 0 and 9

And of course, the one you may know by heart. But Jeff Brohm is 3-0 against top-five teams in his tenure and Purdue’s nine victories against No. 2 ranked teams over the years is the most in college football history. No other team has more than four.

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