Purdue has faced long odds at Indiana before

The Purdue forecast for this Saturday’s Old Oaken Bucket game at Indiana: Gloomy.

Purdue (1-10 overall; 0-8 Big Ten) is a 25.5-point underdog vs. Indiana (10-1; 7-1) as the teams prep to play at 7 p.m. ET on FS1 on Saturday.

The Boilermakers will be punctuating what arguably may be their worst seasons ever, while the Hoosiers are in the midst of their greatest season ever as they look to earn a bid to the College Football Playoff.

A recipe for Purdue to pull off a stunner?

“We have to execute for four quarters,” said Ryan Walters. “We’ve done it in spurts. We got to put two full halves together on offense and defense. Obviously can’t do things to put ourselves behind the eight ball, sort of give them opportunities. When we have opportunities, we got to take advantage of ’em.”

If not, Purdue could suffer yet another blowout loss in a season that’s been filled with them. Still, there’s hope, right? The Boilermakers have done it before vs. Indiana as a heavy underdog. Jim Schwantz knows.

Thirty-five years ago, IU was a 15.5-point favorite vs. Purdue in Bloomington. Few thought Fred Akers’ third Purdue team had much of chance to pull the upset.

But, it happened.

Schwantz still loves telling the story of the late Akers’ halftime speech during the 1989 Old Oaken Bucket game.

“Coach Akers calls everybody up and we all kind of gather around and he starts to get us all fired up,” recalled the former Purdue linebacker. “I didn’t know him to swear once. I never heard him say, ‘darn it.’ But when it was time for us to go out there, Akers said: ‘Let’s burn this bleeping house down!’ Everybody was quiet for what seemed like 15 seconds. Then, all of a sudden, the locker room exploded.”

Akers’ speech was a motivator. The Boilermakers stunned IU, 15-14.

Like this Saturday, back in 1989, the Boilermakers were floundering. Akers’ squad was 2-8 overall and 1-6 in the Big Ten with nothing but pride and the Bucket to play for as they arrived in Memorial Stadium.

There also was an opportunity to ruin the bowl hopes of Indiana (5-5 overall) and mute the Heisman hopes of IU star tailback Anthony Thompson.

And Purdue did it.

Boilermaker kicker Larry Sullivan provided the winning margin when he drilled a 32-yard field goal with 2:51 to play. That capped a 12-point fourth quarter for the Boilermakers. The Hoosiers had a shot to win, but Indiana kicker Scott Bonnell missed a 26-yard field goal a little more than a minute later.

The Boilermakers held Thompson to 97 yards on 28 carries. He also didn’t score a TD. He finished second in Heisman voting to Houston quarterback Andre Ware.

“I’m not going to cry-baby around,” said IU coach Bill Mallory. “It’s a real disappointment. I feel for our seniors. They lost out on a great opportunity there. We lost a lot and it’s too bad.”

Schwantz recalled T-shirts were printed up and sold on campus to commemorate the win emblazoned with the phrase: “No Heisman, no Bucket, no bowl, no s***”

“I remember I had a pretty good day punting,” said Shawn McCarthy. “Having to punt twice out of our end zone at the end sticks out. Punted once and there was a penalty that backed us up half the distance, if I remember correctly, and had to re-punt. Hit it well enough that it put them outside of field-goal range. They ran Thompson once, and we tackled him in bounds as the clock expired.

“With that, we kept them from winning and kept (Thompson) from Heisman talk and brought the Bucket back to West Lafayette.”

There’s always hope.

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