The Ten at Ten

The Boiling Point: This week’s edition of the Ten at Ten.

Hope need to do more of this towards the players when they mess up?

Welcome to the Ten at Ten; a list of ten positives, negatives, or anything in between posted at 10am eastern every Monday.

Positives
1) A Silver Lining- Maybe not a positive overall, but a silver lining to the game is that Purdue has won once at Michigan in the last 50 years. 50! That was courtesy of Joey Elliot. Yep, all our current NFL quarterbacks lost their too.
2) Still Can Get To a Bowl- Contrary to fan reaction on the Purdue message boards on various websites, Purdue isn’t 0-8. We’re 4-4 and can still get to a bowl game. This upcoming weekend is against Wisconsin which is probably a loss. The spread opened at +26.5. For those non-gamblers out there, if you bet on Wisconsin to win they have to win by at least that much. Ohio St played completely opposite of what they normally do this past weekend in an upset over Wisconsin. If they revert back to old form, they are beatable if Purdue plays like they can. Iowa is not that great this year and Indiana is terrible. If we’re only going to get two more wins those are likely where they are coming from.
3) The First Quarter- Purdue scored on their first drive of the game with a big TD run on a jail-break screen. They also held Michigan to only one TD in that first quarter. If we only knew…

In The Middle
4) Defensive Line- For the most part, I thought the defense was able to get into Michigan’s backfield. Michigan just kept running plays to the outside of the defensive line which kind of took them out of the game. A good adjustment by Michigan’s coaches.
5) Denard Robinson Containment- If there was one thing that Purdue was going to focus on, it was on stopping Robinson. Looking back at the game as well as Robinson’s stats, Purdue did a pretty decent job considering how athletic and versatile he his. A lot of his yards were on a couple throws where Purdue’s secondary just didn’t cover properly. Once again though, Michigan’s coaches adjusted and most of Michigan’s other players are what beat us, particularly Fitzgerald Toussaint and his 170 yards rushing.

Negatives
6) Key Officiating Errors- A huge call that was missed was the face mask on Caleb TerBush during the safety. Purdue had just gotten a goal line stop and a ton of momentum then TerBush pretty much took two steps and was hit. An official was right there looking at it and some how missed it. Who knows what would have come of it if it was called, but can’t underestimate some momentum. Another one was pretty much a repeat of the Penn St interception that wasn’t an interception. Justin Siller let a pass go through his hands(surprise) and it looked as though Michigan intercepted it which is what was called. It wasn’t as obvious as the PSU non-INT that was an INT, but from what I saw doesn’t look like it was caught. Another momentum killer.
7) Pass Defense- I considered putting this in a positive/negative section, but just two many big plays were given. We did have two interceptions which is good. Denard Robinson is not a good passer, but Purdue made him look like one. There were two long bombs that stand out that shouldn’t have been completions. One Max Charlot just let his man run by him. On the other Josh Johnson and Albert Evans just pretty much let the Michigan wide receiver catch the ball by the goal line.
8) Offensive Line- Purdue couldn’t get the running game going with only 86 yards and the offensive line couldn’t defend on the pass either. Michigan was able to get pressure on the quarterbacks all day.
9) Coaching Adjustments- Purdue clearly had a game plan going into the game and it worked in the first quarter for the most part. However, when Michigan had it figured out they didn’t adjust quickly enough. If they did, which it didn’t seem like, then it’d be the players not executing. Speaking of which…
10) Player Execution- One thing that has been killing Purdue all year is penalties. Can it be coaching? Yes, but not as much as people make it out to be. These are division one football players who for the most part have been playing their whole lives and shouldn’t have to be told how not to hold. The little I played on offense side of the ball in high school I still know how not to hold. On false starts they just need to listen to what cadence the snap is on. From what I remember Purdue has never had multiple players move on false starts; its just one player which leads to lack of execution. Unfortunately for Purdue, they don’t have the depth outside of running back to bench a player for messing up a ton to prove a point. This isn’t Alabama or LSU where they can just plug a new guy in who could be almost as good as the starter.
As practices are at a lot of schools now, Purdue’s are closed to the media. We aren’t able to see how much time is spent on certain things or how things are coached out. If there’s one thing that I am certain Coach Hope is teaching correctly its the offensive line. He was the offensive line coach of one of the best, if not the best, offensive lines in Purdue history. At some point the players need to start executing. The coaches can’t be out there catching(Siller/Ross), tackling, throwing, blocking, etc.
Coaches are always going to get most of the blame, its just the nature of sports now. Players are never held accountable enough. The Cubs for example have an average or maybe below average manager in Mike Quade, but at same time he doesn’t have much to work with. He’s the one that’s probably going to be let go though, while the majority of the players that didn’t do what they’re paid to do will still be there.

As always leave any positives, negatives, or anything really on the previous game below in the comments.