Bentley battles injury, brings down Illini; notebook

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Ja’Whaun Bentley didn’t think there was any way he’d be held out on Saturday.

No a chance.

The senior middle linebacker had been nicked up, suffering an ankle injury toward the end of the Nebraska game a week earlier that limited him in practice during the ensuing week. But he not only played against Illinois Saturday, he played well, pushing the Boilermakers to a 29-10 victory.

“There’s no doubt in my mind, I wasn’t missing this game,” Bentley said. “It would take a lot more than this to make me miss a game.”

Bentley finished with 12 tackles — ten of them came in the game’s first 39 minutes — including two-and-a-half for loss. He was a menace at the line of scrimmage, punishing ball-carries in helping Purdue hold the Fighting Illini to only 80 yards rushing on 35 attempts, a measly 2.3 per try.

Bentley’s teammates were certainly glad to have him on the field.

“He’s an extremely vocal leader and just a dominant force,” junior safety Jacob Thieneman said. “He knows football, knows how to play the game.”

But earlier in the week, it looked like Bentley might miss. He had been deemed a game-time decision by Coach Jeff Brohm, the same status given to left tackle Eric Swingler, tight end Cole Herdman and cornerback Da’Wan Hunte.

Only the last couldn’t go, as Hunte’s hip flexor, which forced him out the second half of the Nebraska loss, was too much to overcome.

“(It’s a) so-what-show up kind of deal,” said center Kirk Barron about the players who played through injury. “We had guys who were able to work through some things and perform.”

Bentley certainly did so.

The captain has been great all season, perhaps never better, though, than his performance against the Fighting Illini.

“He’s one guy who when I got here, he looked the part,” Brohm said. “He definitely has great instincts, he plays downhill. He really, in the offseason, spring, summer and fall, he worked extremely hard. He’s in great physical shape. He ran hard. He’s faster than people think and he’s around 260 pounds as a middle linebacker who has a ton of experience.”

And an ankle injury wasn’t going to keep him out. Bentley says he tried to do as much as could to prepare while getting treatment to feel as good as possible.

“Toward the end of the week, I was around the team all the time, going thought the game plan,” he said. “It was more mental work, especially being a little more experienced, the mental aspect of things definitely helps me out a lot more.”

Brycen Hopkins spent much of Saturday afternoon jawing with the same Illini defender.

The Purdue tight end spent a few plays beating him. Matched up in one-on-one coverage most of the game, Hopkins had three big receptions, all in the third quarter, going for 21, 20 and 12 yards.

“When we see (man), I would like to think we can take advantage of it,” he said. “If you see a mismatch, then that’s the guy that pre-snap you think you’re going to go too. It might not (always) be the case. But I thought I could do it. I felt like I was able to play a big part of the offense.”

The reception seemed to open up space for the Boilermakers, as the offense scored 16 in the second half to run away from Illinois. Purdue has been trying to get the ball more frequently to the tight ends, Brohm said, and it worked Saturday. Herdman, who played only sparingly as he returns from a toe injury, had a touchdown reception early in the fourth quarter.

But it was Hopkins’ day and he came through.

“Sometimes, we’ve been trying our crossing routes and they haven’t been very productive for us,” Brohm said. “So we kind of went off the play-action pushing his routes a little deeper. Sometimes you worry about taking sacks, but I thought we were protected pretty well. We were able to get him up the field on the deep-over routes and the deep sail routes and he’s a good athlete. When he gets space and room to run, he does a good job.”

Purdue is trying to generate offense however possible these days.

Against the Illini, that included Jared Sparks in a Wildcat package, giving the QB/WR opportunities to run. He did so only on two drives, but both results in points, a first-quarter touchdown and a third-quarter field goal.

“We want to run the football and make sure we open up the passing game by running the football,” Brohm said. “Every little different wrinkle we can think of to get positive yards in the running game, we’re going to do. Jared is an athletic guy who runs hard and I think at first we caught them off guard and got some big plays. as we went on, it didn’t work as well, but I think the change-up, we were able to hit them and get some positive plays, maybe a handful of them that really opened things up.”

The other skill position change might have been more surprising. Junior Jarrett Burgess, who has been mainly a special teams this season when healthy (and that has seemingly been rare), was a starter at wide receiver. He’d had only two receptions in his career, but finished Saturday with three for 43 yards, including a 36-yarder up the right sideline that set up a third-quarter field goal.

“We worked hard all week with Jarrett to get him in there,” Brohm said. “He’s somebody who can run, has good size, even though he hasn’t played a whole lot. We thought we needed a little spark at that position. We tried it a few times earlier in the year, but was injured or came up injured late in the week.

“This week, he worked hard and was healthy and ready to go and did a good job for us. He’s a guy we’ve got to mix in there; I think it made our other receivers play a little better too, to spice up the competition. He has some things that we really don’t have right now, he can run fast and has good size.”

Kamal Hardy started the first half in place of Hunte, picking up where he left off in the second half vs. Nebraska.

But it was Tim Cason, in his debut this season, who got the snaps in the second half. A seven-game starter a year ago, Cason finished with two tackles, the same total as Hardy.

“I thought Kamal had a great week of practice and was ready to go. I thought Tim had his best week of practice,” Brohm said. “Sometimes you’re not playing as hard, not getting yourself up quite as much, but I think this week both guys knew they were going to get in there and play. Both guys did some good things.”

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