It has been quite a while since Purdue has won a regular season game on the West Coast. The Boilermakers did win a game in the Pacific time zone in 2017, but that was the Foster Famrs Bowl against Arizona. With the new Big Ten Purdue will have plenty of chances to get another in future seasons, but the last time Purdue won a regular season game played in the Pacific time zone was in 1970 at Stanford. In that time Purdue has played at UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington, California, and Nevada, but it lost each of those. The farthest it has traveled fo a regular season victory was in 2005 at Arizona.

The week 4 trip to Corvallis to face Oregon State is a good chance to end that unfortunate streak, and it might be a game Purdue has to win in order to reach a bowl game. Three season ago the Beavers came to West Lafayette in the first post-COVID game and Purdue got a win that was a springboard to a 9-4 season. After two losing seasons under Jeff Brohm, it felt like a major turning point game.

The return game is one that looks big for both teams. Purdue needs to get as many wins as it can get against a very difficult schedule. Oregon State needs something good to happen for its program after a tumultuous 18 month period that saw them lose their head coach, several players to the transfer portal, and their entire conference.