Old Oaken Bucket Game History
On the heels of a 17-9 win over Northwestern, Purdue is set to cap off their regular season in the Old Oaken Bucket Game against Indiana this weekend. Purdue currently possesses the Old Oaken Bucket and will look to keep it in West Lafayette for another year.
Since taking over at Purdue in 2017, Jeff Brohm has had success in the Bucket game. The Boilermakers are 3-1 under Brohm against Indiana.
Last season, Purdue blew Indiana out at Ross-Ade Stadium by a score of 44-7. That was the largest margin of victory by the Boilermakers in the series since 2008, when Joe Tiller led Purdue to a 62-10 win. The largest margin of victory in a Purdue win all-time was 68 when the Boilermakers defeated Indiana 68-0 in 1892.
Birth of the Bucket:
The in-state rivalry was named the "Old Oaken Bucket Game" in 1925, nearly 35 years after Purdue and Indiana played for the first time.
In 1925, Russell Gray of Purdue and Clarence Jones of Indiana were tapped by the Chicago alumni groups for the Indiana schools to find a suitable object for the trophy. Those two men said, "an old oaken bucket would be a most typical trophy from this state and should be taken from a well somewhere in Indiana."
Fritz Ernst and Whiley J. Huddle are the two who are credited with finding the Old Oaken Bucket on the Bruner farm somewhere between Kent and Hanover, Indiana.
Each year, the winning team receives a "P" or an "I" to add to the chain. The letter is engraved with the score, date, and city where the game was played that season. Through 1958, a combined "IP" was added when there was a tie (6 in the series' history).
Purdue's success in the series:
In the first playing of one of the oldest rivalries in college football, the inaugural Old Oaken Bucket Game ended in a 0-0 tie in Bloomington.
Since the rivalry's inception, Purdue has had the upper hand during their annual meeting with the Hoosiers. The Boilermakers own a 76-41-6 record against Indiana since 1891. After the official 1925 start of the Old Oaken Bucket Game, Purdue has also held a 60-32-3 advantage.
Over the last 25 years, Purdue has extended that gap. The Boilermakers are 16-8 against Indiana, which includes a 10-2 record by the late Joe Tiller across 12 seasons in West Lafayette.
Purdue's stars of the Old Oaken Bucket Game:
Over the last 131 years of Purdue vs. Indiana, the Boilermakers have had several stars show up against their arch-rivals.
The late Otis Armstrong set a school record that still stands 40 years later when he ran for 276 yards in the 1972 playing for the Old Oaken Bucket. Armstrong also scored three touchdowns to help the Boilermakers win 42-7 over the Hoosiers.
In 2004, Kyle Orton had his best game for the Boilermakers when he tied school records of 522 passing yards and six passing touchdowns through the air. Both of those records were held by Drew Brees at the time. David Blough, Curtis Painter, and Aidan O'Connell have since thrown for more yards, but nobody has eclipsed more than six touchdowns in a game.
During that 2004 game, Purdue wide receiver Kyle Ingraham was the Boilermakers' leading pass catcher with 209 yards on 11 receptions and two touchdowns. That season, Ingraham had nearly a third of his total yards in the Bucket Game.
More recently, Rondale Moore put the cherry on top of his sensational freshman season for the Boilermakers against Indiana in 2018. Moore caught 12 passes for a game-high 141 yards and scored two touchdowns in a 28-21 Purdue win.
Former Purdue running back Markell Jones turned in his best performances in the Old Oaken Bucket Game over his Boilermaker career. Jones averaged 110.7 yards per game and scored three touchdowns in four career matchups against the Hoosiers. His best day was a 217-yard performance in the 2017 game to help take back the Oaken Bucket for the Boilermakers for the first time since 2012.
Purdue will look to secure their 61st win in the Old Oaken Bucket's history and 77th win all-time against Indiana on Saturday. They could be playing for more than the historic trophy though. If Nebraska is able to knock off Iowa and the Boilermakers take care of business in Bloomington, then Purdue would make their first Big Ten Championship Game appearance in program history.
As Indiana is in the midst of another disappointing season, the Boilermakers are primed to go into Memorial Stadium and keep the Old Oaken Bucket back in West Lafayette.