Upon Further Review: Indiana State

Each weekend, or at least most, following Purdue football games, GoldandBlack.com will take a detailed look back at the contest in hopes of illuminating some of its finer points and overlooked moments. Today, the Boilermakers’ 49-0 season-opening win over Indiana State.

PDF: Purdue-Indiana State statistics

PURDUE OFFENSE

ISU was overmatched, obviously, but this was textbook Air Raid-principled stuff from Purdue, getting the ball out of Hudson Card’s hand quickly, building rhythm via easy completions, establishing tempo and creating space for superiorly talented players to show it.

Indiana State gave Purdue a lot of space at the line of scrimmage and Purdue happily took advantage to open the game, getting the ball to Jahmal Edrine on the edge. Edrine looked like a nice possession sort of option for this offense, at worst.

Purdue split out its running back and tight end to build a wall of blockers on the edge, creating a 3-on-2 numbers advantage.

In Week 1, Purdue established some bread-and-butter, move-the-chains sort of passing stuff that it can undoubtedly start playing off of next time out.

This extended-hand-off misdirection stuff to Drew Biber was something that looks like it will be a staple, especially in the red zone.

The passing rhythm Purdue established disoriented Indiana State’s defense, busted open the running game and laid the groundwork for chunk-play strikes to come. Here’s guessing Purdue kept things pretty basic in Week 1.

TIGHT END USAGE AND ROLE

If anyone “broke out,” per se, on Saturday it might have been tight end Max Klare, who might have been out-of-sight, out-of-mind for many of you after he was lost last season to injury.

He looked vs. ISU like Purdue’s biggest weapon offensively, and a player Purdue is going to build scheme for.

Here, on this TD, you see Purdue run diverging routes with its wide receivers to open up this one-on-one matchup for Klare. Completely emptied out his area.

Prior, Purdue seems to be expecting zone here. Shifting the back to the left side draws the linebacker’s attention, consequently compelling the guy responsible for the right flat to lean inside to the open middle. Klare just sits down in the spot his guy is shifting away from.

Indiana State in zone here.

Klare is athlete enough for Purdue to split him out wide and still have a player nimble enough to run a precise enough route to hit zone right where it hurts, a post behind the linebackers and in front of the safeties.

One last thing … all that east-west pressure Purdue put on ISU with those horizontal passes to start the game, here’s what happens when the defense is conditioned to expect it. Edrine’s motion across the formation makes this play.

Remember, Klare had his biggest catch of the game taken away by penalty, a holding call on which the difference between a hold and a pancake block was kinda blurry.

The short-passing game really messed with ISU’s back-end D. Indiana State is playing zone here inside the 20 like it’s a third-and-five at midfield. This has to be a significant breakdown on their part.

Back to Max Klare … he did a great job as an open-field blocker.

LINE OF SCRIMMAGE

As it should have in a game like this, Purdue dominated the line of scrimmage on defense.

In his first game at middle linebacker, Kydran Jenkins did a bit of everything. He dropped into coverage, pursued sideline to sideline and blitzed vs. both the run and the pass.

One thing Ryan Walters and Co. are really good at is scheming matchups for pass-rushers. Purdue probably didn’t show much in the opener, but here’s how they rolled on one third-and-long snap to try to free Jenkins.

With the run out of the equation, Purdue bunches two rushers together on each flank in hopes of spreading the offensive front out and maybe opening a gap for Jenkins to hit through the middle. The safety creeps up behind him to add an extra layer of concern for the front.

This would be dangerous against a credible passing game.

The interior lineman were all very good, looked like. Jeffrey M’ba, Damarjhe Lewis and Cole Brevard were all too much for Indiana State.

Again, no chest-beating over doing this against ISU. This is what should happen, but positive nonetheless.

On offense, there were too many offensive line penalties, though some could be debated, but a nice day in general.

Nice successive-block sequence here from Gus Hartwig.

Even better. ISU guessed right on this blitz. Hartwig cleaned it up. Big-time center play.

WILL HELDT IS A TERROR

Purdue may be on the verge of seeing a sophomore breakout season not all that dissimilar to what it got last season from Nic Scourton. Yes, that’s a mouthful, and yes, this was Indiana State, but Will Heldt looked like an NFL prospect Saturday.

For an edge player with his height and length to be this explosive off the line, that’s just special.

This may look like Heldt just bolted past the offensive tackle on this sack, but it’s more than that. Heldt’s prior rushes came off the edge, prompting the tackle to lean outside. Heldt then went inside of him here, ever so slightly changing direction at full speed, which is not a run-of-the-mill play.

Heldt was pretty good against the run, too, an important part of his position’s job being to set the edge and keep containment.

Point is, this wasn’t just a situational pass-rush sort of guy just running past people. This was a really complete impact he made.

(Yes, things will get markedly more challenging against better teams, but if you consider a game like this to be batting practice, Heldt hit a couple upper-deck shots in this game, showing what he’s capable of.)