Upon Further Review: Rush defense problems

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’ 66-7 loss to Notre Dame.

PDF: Purdue-Notre Dame statistics

You all saw this game and know that it was an outcome where no one or two things being different would have mattered all that much, so we will not belabor the obvious.

PURDUE DEFENSE

Plain and simple, Purdue got abused, both up front on the edges and in the back end in pass coverage against Notre Dame’s route structures.

First the edges.

The quarterback run opened up this whole game for ND, because Purdue could not contain the ball and then the second and third levels of the defense wound up leaning too often.

This Riley Leonard draw — a designed run — really set the tone.

To illustrate how ND dominated the line of scrimmage, look how long the pulling tackle here has to wait for someone to block.

So now that you’ve seen that play, you can see here how the threat of it happening again manipulates Dillon Thieneman on this long run. Everything goes wrong on this play, but Thieneman leaning away from where the ball winds up going is the difference between this being a 20-yard gain or being a touchdown.

This play above is actually the best microcosm of all that went wrong for Purdue.

First off, the edge here, C.J. Madden, bites down hard to the inside. Every one of Purdue’s edges did this throughout the day, so we’re not sure if this is read-and-react situation like read-option would dictate or if this is by design to fortify the middle.

Either way, it surrenders the edge, and then amplifies Kydran Jenkins‘ limitations as a sideline-to-sideline player. He may be fine playing between the tackles as a gap-filling, point-of-contact guy, but this really shines a light on some pursuit limitations, particularly once Thieneman is a step behind and Markevious Brown is taken out of the play down the field but the receiver he was tethered to in coverage. People are going to pick on Jenkins here, but he gets hung out to dry here by the failures in front of him.

Look how this play looks right after the handoff.

Back to the edge …

It happens over and over where the Purdue defender dives inside.

This is just Will Heldt biting on the play fake.

Then freshman Tarrion Grant takes a bad angle on the ball, allowing all hell to break loose.

The tackling issue is illustrated in all these clips too.

Here’s Heldt diving inside again. This seems by design, because Heldt is positioned to blow up an inside run here while Antonio Stevens, ostensibly a linebacker for Purdue, flows into ideal position to stop the outside run. Problem here is Stevens misses.

Last thing ….

Purdue now lines up rush end Shitta Sillah a yard or so back, presumably to give him sight lines and to free him from traffic/blocking. It actually works perfectly, until Sillah leans up the field and loses containment. Then, more missed tackles.

As much as anything, Purdue lost this game on the edges, and it really was Leonard’s running ability that set the table.

A sidenote: It’s no secret that teams that play man coverage are more vulnerable to quarterback runs. That’s Purdue’s style.

When it did play zone, it was better against the run, though no one style of play was gonna change 66-7 all that much.

PASS DEFENSE

As mentioned, Purdue got worked over in pass defense every bit as much as it did the run, even if ND ran a very conservative offensive plan.

Notre Dame’s mesh routes — “rub” routes, you might say, though some were flat-out picks — confounded Purdue’s DBs in coverage.

Tone was set early.

Here’s Tarrion Grant just getting taken out of the play altogether, but also a nice route by a talented receiver.

Really nice design here by Notre Dame. Markevious Brown is too late getting over top of the “screen.”

It helps having receivers who can make quick cuts like this.

Speaking of that talent level, this is a big-time cut by Jerimiyah Love. A missed tackle, yes, but give the offense the credit on this one.

Now, back to the cross-ups in coverage … Purdue is in zone here in the red zone, but botches it. Two DBs get crossed up and vacate the middle of the field.

The tackling issue was obvious and much of it covered in the examples above, but it was a bit jarring to not just see that many misses, but also just how many bad angles were taken and basic stuff like that.

Tackling is quite often rough around the edges early in the season, as camp has gotten less and less physical over the years. Indiana State obviously didn’t even test Purdue in that regard.

PURDUE OFFENSE

Don’t have much here, because it seemed like kind of a moot point, but Purdue just couldn’t cut it at the line of scrimmage. Offensive line struggled badly, and it was a long day for newcomers Corey Stewart and Josh Sales at left tackle. Stewart has been banged up.