Welcome to Boilermusings, your weekly in-season thoughts column on all of Purdue sports. Yes, I will be touching on… whatever that was on Saturday against Notre Dame, but let’s begin with some positivity.

Purdue volleyball is now 8-0 and has already grabbed a signature non-conference win by beating Kentucky on Saturday 3-1 to win the SMU tournament in Dallas. Eva Hudson was named tournament MVP as Purdue rolled over Houston 3-0 and #10 Kentucky 3-1. The victory over Kentucky means Purdue now has 10 consecutive seasons with at least one win over a top 10 opponent.

This season might be the best chance yet for Purdue to break through to a volleyball Final Four under Dave Shondell. Purdue has made 11 Sweet 16s under Shondell and four Elite 8’s. The youth it has had the last couple of years is beginning to pay dividends, as Hudson, Raven Colvin, and Chloe Chicoine are playing as one of the best front lines in the country. Taylor Anderson has been fantastic as a setter, Ali Hornung has been solid in getting digs, and Colvin leads the Big Ten in blocks per game match.

As a team, Purdue has just dropped three sets on the season. Those came against Kansas State, California, and Kentucky. The Kentucky match is the only time they have dropped the first set in a match, and Purdue responded with a dominant 25-13 second set. They are getting on teams early and have yet to be pushed to a fifth set.

Purdue is currently ranked 7th, and it has two tough non-conference matches this coming weekend against No. 11 Kansas and No. 9 Creighton at Kansas. As always, the Big Ten will present plenty of challenges as the usual suspects of Penn State, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Oregon are all in the top 20 with Purdue. Still, Purdue is in a very good spot. The program has never won a Big Ten championship in volleyball. This might be the year for that to end.

Nowhere to Go But Up

I suppose the good news about Saturday’s 66-7 loss to Notre Dame is that Purdue probably could not have played worse. Was it a surprise that Notre Dame won the game? Absolutely not. They are a team with a lot of talent and even after the surprising loss to Northern Illinois they have high expectations. I don’t think anyone expected the worst loss in the history of Purdue football, even Notre Dame fans.

Losing 63-7 to LSU in the Citrus Bowl two years ago was at least somewhat understandable with all the opt outs and half a coaching staff. This was a week 3 home game against an in-state rival where Purdue had two weeks to prepare. If I had to sum it up in one word it would be “appalling”.

As dominant as Purdue looked against Indiana State two weeks ago, Notre Dame looked just as dominant against Purdue. The numbers are shocking. Purdue had only six first downs. When Hudson Card connected with Kam Brown to set up Purdue’s only score with a 52 yard catch that one play represented almost a third of the total number of yards Purdue gained all day. To call Purdue’s offense disappointing is an understatement.

Then there was the defense, which seemed to put on a show of how to not tackle someone. Again, it is not that Notre Dame is a good team. So much was Purdue just not doing the most basic things. You don’t give up a 70-yard TD run on the final play of the half without something going egregiously wrong. Riley Leonard’s second touchdown run was almost accidental with the inability Purdue showed in tackling him.

This is a game where Purdue should have at least been competitive. Instead, it fell behind early, got hit for three touchdowns in the final 2:30 of the first half, and even in the second half with the game well decided it still got a single first down. If anything, the second half should be even more shocking. Purdue’s lone TD drive was 75 yards, 52 of which came on one play. On the other six possessions of the second half, against Notre Dame’s backups, Purdue actually lost 18 yards total.

That makes this week a huge one for the early tenure of Ryan Walters. The team now faces a long road trip against an opponent that looked beatable in the offseason, but that was before was dominated about as badly as a Power Four team can be dominated by another Power Four team.

As I said above, it really couldn’t have been much worse, especially when you consider that if Purdue had taken a knee on every play of those six second half drives and still gained more yardage. Maybe things just spiraled against a good opponent that was highly motivated after its own embarrassing loss a week earlier. This Oregon State game is now one that looks a lot like last year’s trip to Virginia Tech. It is also pretty much a must-win if there is going to be any sort of postseason too with five top 25 teams in the following seven games.

In the end, it only counts as one loss, but hopefully it does not snowball into a lost season. This is a big week for Ryan Walters & Co. as a result.

Cross Country Finishes Mid-Pack at Big Ten Preview

The men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in the Big Ten Preview this weekend at Illinois against Big Ten foes Northwestern, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Rutgers along with Cincinnati and Butler.

The men’s team finished fifth as a team, with Nathan Walker’s eleventh place finish leading the way. Wisconsin dominated the men’s event with the top three finishers and all five scoring runners finishing in the top 12.

On the women’s side it was Northwestern’s time to dominate with three of the top five finishers. Payne Turney was Purdue’s top finisher in 12th place as the team finished sixth out of nine.

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