Being asked to close the regular season with two straight road games is tough. Purdue has not had to do that since 2003, when it closed at Ohio State and Indiana in consecutive weeks. This year it must go to East Lansing and Bloomington to close the year, and there is a very good chance it will have to win at least one of those games in order to reach a bowl game.

It has also been a long time since Purdue has played at Michigan State. The last trip to East Lansing was in 2018 in the game that followed the monumental upset of Ohio State. The Boilers dropped that game 23-13, but the last meeting was Purdue's most recent upset of a top 5 team. The 40-29 win in 2021 completely shook up the Big Ten standings, and Michigan is just 12-17 since they entered that game at 8-0 and ranked in the top 5.

After two straight losing seasons and a coaching change the Spartans are in a bit of flux, and that makes this another toss-up game for the Boilermakers.