Purdue at Wisconsin 10/22

[Brewcrew82]

11 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

You seem to be ignoring that that Michigan team was horrible and COVID riddled. That whole season should be written off as a meaningless exhibition. 

Pointing to any game that season as a high point is pretty damning. 

Reasonable point. You could make the argument that the final "high point" of the Chryst era was the demolition of Minnesota in the snow to win the BIG West in 2019, with everything going downhill after the devastating succession of losses in the BIG Championship and the Rose Bowl. 

[yourout]

Just now, Brewcrew82 said:

Reasonable point. You could make the argument that the final "high point" of the Chryst era was the demolition of Minnesota in the snow to win the BIG West in 2019, with everything going downhill after the devastating losses in the BIG Championship and the Rose Bowl. 

I agree. That was probably the high water mark for his era.

His track record going all the way back to Pittsburgh was losing games they shouldn't have.

[Jim French Stepstool]

Here's what I took away from Saturday:

Purdue scoring 24 obviously doesn't illustrate how good the defense was. I've seen improvement from a lot of people--Thompson, Goetz, Chaney, Tatum Grass, Rodas Johnson, both ILB's. They made a lot of plays collectively, & that's with Herbig not being out there much. The last Purdue TD could've easily been their only one. It was also terrific seeing Alex Smith running around being effective.

I'd like to think the O-line still has more to give, consistency-wise, but that could be a case of unfair comparison to the lines that preceded them. Just like Alex Smith on D, it's great to see Mahlmann back. A few miscues, but certainly trending upward.

The only real consistent thing Purdue had was the middle seam, usually with the TE. A lot of the time this was available due to blitzing one/both ILBs, which is something that shouldn't happen as consistently when Herbig is 100% as they then have a blitzing option off the edge.

As bad as the TD call was on the 4th-down stop (and it was bad), the OPI was almost as bad. Eschenbach did nowhere near enough to be flagged on that. 

Every one of their remaining games could, on paper, be a win. That doesn't mean it will happen, though. Leonhard preaches "clean" football. They've largely accomplished that the last three weeks, but a bad quarter or 2 (MSU) can cost you. Under the circumstances, I like the bye week popping up here.

[Jim French Stepstool]

On 10/22/2022 at 5:38 PM, Brewcrew82 said:

Another great performance from Mertz. He's much improved from last year, with the boneheaded decisions becoming increasingly rare. 1st TD pass was something none of our QBs since Wilson could do. 2nd one wasn't that easy either. 

Yep. You could keep a week-by-week report card of Mertz, good stuff/bad stuff, and in recent weeks the first column Is getting larger & larger, while the second one is shrinking. They're rolling him out more, which he seems to be really comfortable with (I'm guessing that was something Chryst just didn't like him doing). What makes it more impressive is he's doing this w/o a TE presence in the pass game. Jaylyn Franklin caught one ball, but likely doesn't block nearly well enough to see the field regularly. Hoping Hayden Rucci makes it back at some point.

[Brewcrew82]

Just now, Jim French Stepstool said:

Yep. You could keep a week-by-week report card of Mertz, good stuff/bad stuff, and in recent weeks the first column Is getting larger & larger, while the second one is shrinking. They're rolling him out more, which he seems to be really comfortable with (I'm guessing that was something Chryst just didn't like him doing). What makes it more impressive is he's doing this w/o a TE presence in the pass game. Jaylyn Franklin caught one ball, but likely doesn't block nearly well enough to see the field regularly.

Yeah. It's exciting to think what he could potentially do next year with this group of receivers (and Allen) should he decide to come back. He might finally fulfill those outsized expectations, and take this offense to a level it hasn't seen since Wilson. The key will be for Leonhard and Bostad to right the ship on defense and on the o-line. 

I hope they continue to experiment with Franklin in the passing game. For a second, I thought Travis Beckham had put on a uniform when he made that catch down the seam. Just for a second, though, lol. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

23 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

BIG West title still means something. At the very least, we would be able to say we had our worst season in years and still were better than Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and co. Also, it's a fun time down in Indy, as I was there for 2017 and 2019. 

Agreed. Even though the situations are quite different, I liken it to the "I don't want the Brewers in the playoffs b/c they have no chance" argument. Their chances of winning would be as close to nil as you can get, but if they win out & that's the reward, I'll take it. And in that scenario, it's not like it would be their last game.

[Jim French Stepstool]

5 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Yeah. It's exciting to think what he could potentially do next year with this group of receivers (and Allen) should he decide to come back. He might finally fulfill those outsized expectations, and take this offense to a level it hasn't seen since Wilson. The key will be for Leonhard and Bostad to right the ship on defense and on the o-line. 

I hope they continue to experiment with Franklin in the passing game. For a second, I thought Travis Beckham had put on a uniform when he made that catch down the seam. Just for a second, though, lol. 

Right now, unless it's mopup time if you see Franklin on the field it's a pretty good bet they have something dialed up for him. I'm hoping Rucci makes it back soon as he's more of an everydown TE.

The physical resemblance to Beckum.....good call!