Number Crunching: Week 4

Minnesota quarterback Tanner Morgan's jersey number and half the win total he has enjoyed against Purdue in the past four years.Morgan is 4-0 against Purdue in his career, going 55 of 80 for 968 yards, six touchdowns and one interception. Of the 268 players who have thrown at least one pass against Purdue since at 2000, he ranks third in yardage, behind only Notre Dame's Brady Quinn who put up a whopping 1,485 passing yards in four games from 2003 to 2006 (he went 2-2), and more recently, Nebraska's Adrian Martinez who racked up 1,081 yards in four games (but also threw only five touchdowns against six interceptions while going 1-3 against Purdue).

Charlie Jones continues to put up astounding numbers for the Boilers - he sits in first in the country in receptions with 41 (by a large margin - Xavier Hutchinson of Iowa State is second with 36) and third in the country in receiving yards with 533 (first in the Power 5 by almost 100 yards - second is Emeka Egbuka of Ohio State with 442). He's the only Purdue player since 2000 and only the 7th player in FBS in that same timeframe to rack up 40+ receptions, 530+ receiving yards and 7+ TDs - and that puts him in some incredible company. Here's who he shares that honor with:- Michael Crabtree, Texas Tech - two-time Biletnikoff Award winner, two-time unanimous All-American, two-time first team-All Big 12, 10th overall pick in 2009- Brandin Cooks, Oregon State - Biletnikoff Award winner, consensus All-American, first team All-Pac-12, 20th overall pick in 2014 - Tavon Austin, West Virginia - first team All-Big 12, first team all-Big East, 8th overall pick in 2013- Kendall Wright, Baylor - first-team All-Big 12, first team-All American, 20th overall pick in 2012- Trent Taylor, Louisiana Tech - two-time first team All-C-USA, 5th round pick in 2017- Stedman Bailey, West Virginia - first team All-Big 12, 3rd round draft pick in 2013

Purdue scored 14 points and Florida Atlantic scored 13 points in both halves. It's the first time both Purdue and their opponent have both scored the same amount of points in both halves since Purdue's November 2015 loss to Iowa, when Purdue scored 10 and Iowa scored 20 in both halves en route to a 40-20 Purdue loss.

Austin Burton is the first Purdue QB to throw for three touchdowns in his first start since Joey Elliott. While Elliott had appeared in 10 games in his first three years at Purdue, it wasn't until 2009 that he got the nod at starter. In that start, he completed 17 of his 28 passes for 220 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions in a 52-31 win over Toledo in the season opener. No other Purdue quarterback has tossed three TD passes in his first college start dating back to Len Dawson having four in his first start against Notre Dame, though it is unclear (due to the nature of the substitution rules in those days) whether Dawson actually started against the Irish in 1954 or in his college debut one week earlier with he tossed four TD passes in a win over Missouri.

Dylan Downing notched 113 rushing yards against Florida Atlantic last weekend. That broke a 17-game streak of the Boilers not having a 100-yard rusher, with the most recent 100-yard rushing performance being Zander Horvath's 101 yard performance against Rutgers in 2020. That 17-game streak is tied with another 17-game streak that took place between D.J. Knox's 128-yard game against Ohio State in the 49-20 blowout in 2018 and the final game of the 2019 season when Horvath put up 164 yards in a season-ending loss to Indiana.

Purdue has beaten Minnesota 33 times in the history of its program, but only two of those wins have come while the Gophers were ranked as they will be this weekend. In 1960, Purdue took down No. 1 Minnesota in Minneapolis, 23-14. Their only other win against a ranked Gophers team came against when the Gophers were ranked No. 7 in 1949. Purdue won, 13-7. The Boilers have lost eight times to a ranked Minnesota, though 6 of those came in the early 1960s or earlier. In 2020, Purdue lost to No. 21 Minnesota 34-31, though Payne Durham and coach Jeff Brohm might dispute that one.

Chris Jefferson notched another game-changing interception against the Owls on Saturday, this time returning it 55-yards and setting Purdue up for a touchdown to put the game out of reach. He's now got 127 total interception return yards this year (he also had the 72-yard pick-six against Penn State), first in the country. The record for most interception return yards in a season is held by Adrian Beasley, who recorded five interceptions for 169 yards in 1999.

The Boilermakers are now ninth in the country and second in the P5 in penalty yards per game, averaging 74.5 penalty yards per contest. That's by far the most penalty yards committed by a Jeff Brohm-led Purdue team. And if the trend continues, it stands to break the record for most penalty yards for any Purdue team in its history, with the record being set in 2018 when the Boilers averaged 64.4 penalty yards per game.

It seems a bit strange that Purdue has only three remaining home games after Saturday's Homecoming win over FAU on Sept. 24. Has it happened recently? Yes, four years ago Purdue had just three home games after defeating Boston College on one of its earliest Homecoming games ever on Sept. 23, 2018.

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