Acrepro.com Wednesday Night Live: Purdue football talk

Purdue football talk and chat with GoldandBlack.com’s Tom Dienhart and Alan Karpick as the duo breaks down Saturday’s contest with Nebraska, Purdue’s struggles the last two weeks and looking ahead to what my be next for coach Ryan Walters and staff.

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More: Weekly Word: Purdue football’s challenging start and more

Purdue’s Offensive Identity: Hand the Ball To Mockobee

Story by Tom Dienhart

What is the Purdue offense? What label would you put on it? What’s its identity? What does it hang its hat on?

The answer through three games: The rushing attack.

The offense is averaging 183.0 yards rushing. Take away a 38-yard effort vs. Notre Dame, and that rushing average jumps to 255.5.The video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard

“The running backs did a great job (at Oregon State), the o-line did a great job,” said offensive coordinator Graham Harrell, whose attack ran for 263 yards (8.8 ypc) last Saturday. “We obviously ran the ball pretty successful.

“You can build on what we did in the run game, especially just from an effort and physicality standpoint.”

This continues a trend that began last year for the Boilermakers, who in 2023 finished No. 1 in the Big Ten in rushing in conference play (184.6 ypg). The rushing attack closed the year on a roll, rushing for 353 yards vs. Minnesota, 303 at Northwestern and 178 vs. Indiana in the final three games. Purdue went 2-1 in those tilts.

The fulcrum: Devin Mockobee, who is coming off the second best rushing effort of his career at Oregon State. He torched the Beavers for 168 yards (10.5 ypc), eclipsing the 2,000-yard career rushing mark during a 63-yard jaunt last Saturday. Mockobee was not impressed by himself. He never is.

“Personally speaking, don’t really care if it doesn’t mean a ‘W’,” said Mockobee. “So, it’s whatever.”

MORE: First look: Nebraska | First and 10 | Purdue’s Ryan Walters hears outside noise, but he’s not listening | The 3-2-1 | GoldandBlack.com Radio: Purdue-Nebraska | Opponent View: Nebraska

As Nebraska (3-1) comes to Purdue (1-2) for a noon ET kickoff, Mockobee leads the squad with 276 yards rushing, averaging an eye-popping 7.7 yards per tote. And Illinois transfer Reggie Love has proven to be a good addition, chipping in 165 yards rushing (6.1 ypc).

Meanwhile, the passing game as floundered. How bad has it been? The Boilermakers rank 15th in the 18-team Big Ten, averaging 171.7 yards per game. Avert your eyes, Drew Brees.

“Yeah, like I said, we’ve got to play complementary football,” said Harrell, whose offense is No. 13 overall (354.7 ypg) and No. 13 in scoring (25.7 ppg) in the Big Ten. “We’ve got to look at when we’re using tempo offensively, how do we generate easier third down conversions. There’s a lot of things that we are evaluating right now.”

The absence of two top wideouts– Jahmal Edrine and CJ Smith–only makes matters more challenging for the passing game. Ryan Walters is X-ing and O-ing as fast as he can, working with Hudson Card to improve matters.

“I think we’ll keep those issues in house so we’re not tipping our hand to our opponent, but there are definitely things that we’ve talked about, have addressed, and looking forward to seeing what that looks like … ,” said Walters.

But one thing seems certain for this struggling offense: Give the ball to Mockobee running behind a line that has shown it can be physical and get a push … and let everything build off that.

“On offense, we’ve got to do things that our guys are comfortable with and give our guys that need touches, to give them touches,” said Walters. “And we’ve got to do things that allow our quarterback to play well. Huddy is a talented individual, and that talent has got to show up on game day.”

Purdue Top 12 all-time leading rushers

Devin Mockobee passed the 2,000-yard career rushing mark last week. He averaged 890 yards rushing in each of his first two seasons. If Mockobee hits that mark in 2024 and 2025, he will finish with 3,560 career rushing yards–No. 2 all-time at Purdue.