Purdue vs. USC
September 13, 2025 at 3:45pm (Lightning Delay)
Ross-Ade Stadium, West Lafayette, IN: (58,065 of 61,441)
Total Time: 3 hours 16 minutes

The first road game of the season ended in victory, but probably sloppier than most hopefuls would like. However, as the resident pessimist, I’m here to temper that with some optimism. By the end of the season, we may see that this isn’t the same Purdue team that went 1-11 and had the 5th worst scoring offense and 4th worst scoring defense of the 2024 season. Three games into head coach Barry Odom’s tenure at Purdue, he has them with more wins than last year already!

Joking aside, Odom actually has a decent resume. He took over a UNLV team that hadn’t had a winning season since Lane Kiffin was still at USC (three interims, and two head coaches ago!) and immediately took them to the conference championship and a 9-win season. He followed it up with their first ever 11-win season before leaving for Purdue. He’s also responsible for 25% of their bowl appearances and bowl wins…so he could have very well had an instant impact with the Boilermakers. Aaaaand I could be eating my words as soon as next week when an angry 0-2 Notre Dame team boils them alive.

By the way, were you wondering what a Boilermaker is?

Anyway, now that you’re done looking into those soulless eyes, we can do a quick foray into homerism. The broadcasters definitely felt more than a bit biased. Gary Danielson I get, being the former Purdue quarterback, but Brad Nessler? What’s his angle on this? Then there were those random penalties like the jumping penalty on the punt that led to Purdue’s first three points. Then a random defensive holding call on a lineman during a run play that was trying to make a tackle?

You can try to argue there was a penalty there, but it sure seems like nothing. Even if there was, they are enforcing it with the stringency of the Purdue Owl attacking you with MLA.

By the way, Purdue had more first downs by penalty (5) than by rushing (3). There’s always stuff to criticize though, and there might be no-calls that USC got away with, so let’s just move on. I’ll admit that I’m such a homer, that I could’ve wrote the Odyssey.

Good/Badisms

Good/Bad: Jayden Maiava showed greatly improved deep ball accuracy, hitting receivers in stride downfield. However, he also still had some risky passes thrown up under pressure that easily could have been interceptions if bounced a bit differently…luckily, most of it was concentrated into one bad drive.

Good/Bad: A fluky play like the double pass trick play that went from a dropped interception, to fumble, and miraculously to touchdown. It’s bad because it happened, but also it means it won’t be happening often. They only allowed one other touchdown.

Bad: They need to clean up the tackling a bit still. USC was in Purdue’s backfield a lot, which showed how well they sniffed out plays. However, they didn’t bring them down in many cases, leading to large gains

Good: Okay, but five sacks and ten tackles for loss…so clearly it worked sometimes.

Goodish: Another zero punt game, but need more drives to translate to points

Good: Three interceptions, two by Bishop Fitzgerald and, of course, the fan favorite by Jamaal Jarrett. That one by number zero was especially meaningful since mid-third quarter, USC only made a field goal, Purdue was in the red zone and could have brought the game within one score (23-10), but the 70-yard pick six by Jamaal Jarrett bailed them out, bringing it back to a 3-score game. That moment was quite the swing.

Bad: Scoring zero offensive touchdowns in the second half

Good: 10:55 time of possession in the third quarter to really put a team away. Shows the team has the ability to do it and Lincoln Riley has grown as a coach.

Bad/Good: Poor 3rd down conversions, but made up with perfect on 4th down conversions.

Good: Red zone defense: two scores out of five attempts allowed and only one TD

Good: Ryon Sayeri made all but one of his field goals in rainy conditions, including a long 48-yarder

Good: Eli Sanders and Waymond Jordan both decent running. King Miller getting meaningful carries outside of garbage time and making them worth it. The running backs have USC at #8 in the nation for runs of 10+ yards (23).

CommBro Breaker

So all in all, it was a messy game with some missed opportunities on offense and defense, but it was a weird game and there’s still a lot of stuff that can’t be extrapolated from it due to that.

Along with the lightning delay and rain, the Purdue coaching staff carried both the former USC offensive line coach and Maiava’s former coach at UNLC. Also, as the broadcast mentioned, the last time USC won in the Eastern timezone was also when Kiffin was still here: 2012 against Syracuse. It was also the last time a USC game featured a weather delay. And lastly, let’s be honest, if this was last year’s team, they would’ve found a way to lose this game too. So let’s appreciate it for what it is.

Weird Stat of the Week: USC and Purdue both sit at #41 in scoring defense with 16.7 points per game allowed

Uplifting Stat of the Week #1: USC is tied for #2 in the nation in interceptions (6) and tied for #1 in pick sixes (2)

Uplifting Stat of the Week #2: The Trojans have the most sacks in the nation (14) and are two-thirds of the way to last season’s total (21) with 9+ games to go.

Depressing Stat of the Week: The Trojans sit at #125 in the nation for penalty yards a game (80.3)