Don’t Hop Off the Boilermaker Bandwagon

Now in the family the saying is there is no such thing as a good loss, wins are wins and losses are losses but that doesn’t mean you can’t take away positives. The Boilermakers lost at Iowa 26-20 but an extremely young team looks like the coaches are earning their money and coaching this team up once again. Already this season Purdue has lost starting QB Elijah Sindelar, LB Markus Bailey, S Marvin Grant and RB Richie Worship with DT Lorenzo Neal still out and WR Rondale Moore still sidelined. An already young team has had more youngsters needed to step in, at some of the most important positions. That would be a tall task for any team and reasonable to expect a bit of a lost season.

After the blow outs at the hands of Minnesota and Penn State it would have been reasonable to think post season play was already out for Brohm’s squad this season, especially with the Nevada loss. However, the 40-14 win against Maryland gave fans hope. Now the team is 2-5 with Illinois, Northwestern and IU still on the schedule. The other two games are home against Nebraska and at Wisconsin. It would seem pretty safe to pencil the Badgers in for a win, even after the loss at Illinois, but those other four are possible.

With the consensus All-American out, and plenty of other WR beat up, it seemed like the offense may be dead in the water with no real running game but the big time WR recruiting class is showing up, namely David Bell. Back-to-back Big Ten Freshman of the week have fans salivating for when Moore comes back, and the future.

Bell is fresh off a 13 catches for 197 yards and a TD to go with 9 catches for 138 yards and 2 scores against Maryland. Let’s not forget the NFL prospect TE Brycen Hopkins. Jack Plummer threw for 420 yards and 3 TD against Maryland and 327 yards 2TD and 1 INT against a tough Iowa defense. The kid is playing well despite a limited running game.

It was easy to jump off the Boilermaker Special with the team but Brohm’s staff has shown it may take them a second but they can figure out their team in the season and play tough. Let’s not forget a top 25 class came to West Lafayette this year with a #26 class on paper already for 2020. Already there’s a 4* TE, 4* RB, 4* QB and 4* S with verbals to wear black and gold next season.

Bozos on the net were criticizing how much money Brohm was getting coming in to this season after a 13-13 record and 1-1 bowl record two seasons in, but how can you not look at what’s happening and still feel very positive about Purdue. Yes the slow starts have to stop but the amount of talent coming to Prude each season is getting better and better. It’ll still be a really young team next year with a few more freshmen likely to see significant time but having all these kids play just means there will be a lot of snaps returning for next season.

It was one of the toughest schedules in 2019, and next year has Memphis and Air Force home and at Boston College for the non-conference with Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin in conference play, but this program is recruiting at a tier two level in the Big Ten. They aren’t going to out recruit the blue bloods but Brohm has his team right behind them. We know the coaching is there and the talent keeps coming. We’ll see if they get to a bowl game in 2019 but there’s no reason to jump off the Boilermaker bandwagon.