After a string of tough games against the Big Ten West “powers” Purdue now gets a bit of a perceived breather. You can never take any Big Ten game for granted, but Purdue’s finishing kick against two teams that are currently a combined 2-12 in league play is about as nice of a gift as you can ask for a team trying to win a divisional title. In order to play in Indianapolis the first weekend of December the Boilers need three things to happen: They need to beat Northwestern, they need to beat Indiana, and they need Iowa to lose one of its two remaining games.

On paper, the first two of those look pretty likely, while this weekend we will look to Minneapolis for the third. Northwestern comes in as possibly the worst Power 5 conference team in 2022. They haven’t won on this continent since beating Rutgers 21-7 on October 16, 2021. They are 1-15 in their last 16 games, and that includes Purdue’s 32-14 win at Wrigley Field last year.