MORE: First-look at Vanderbilt | Rondale Moore talks punt return gaffe and more

Purdue finds itself in familiar territory, staring at an 0-1 record after the first game of the season.

Jeff Brohm now has lost all three of his openers as the Boilermaker coach. The previous two seasons, Purdue has rebounded to make a bowl. So, don’t expect Brohm and Co., to panic. But they know things need to improve quickly coming off a gut-punch 34-31 loss at Nevada last Friday night.

“Our players and coaches understand we have to do a much better job,” said Brohm at his Monday morning press conference. “That has been communicated.”

Several issues sabotaged the Boilermakers at Nevada, where they squandered a 31-14 lead they had built midway in the third quarter. From there, the Wolf Pack outscored Purdue, 20-0. At the top of the list among the Boilermakers’ issues: turnovers. Purdue had five, Nevada had none.

“Really, the game is 31-14,” said Brohm. “They're punting to us. We have a turnover that gets them the ball back where we could easily have taken that ball and tried to have done something with it, possibly close the game, put an even more differential point margin. The tide swung from there.”

For the first time in his Purdue tenure, defensive coordinator Nick Holt worked from the press box instead of the sideline. Where will Holt be this Saturday?

“He'll be right up where he was … ,” said Brohm.

Brohm thinks Holt has a better vantage point while perched above the action.

“I know for myself, if I wasn't the head coach, I would be up in the booth,” said Brohm. “You can see the field, what's going on, identify things. In between series, you can have your notes and your sheets right in front of you.

“It's much easier to call a game, in my opinion, upstairs just from a sight standpoint, ability to see personnel, match the teams coming in, realize mistakes.”

Holt had been known for being very demonstrative on the field during games, often having to be restrained by a staff member. Does Brohm think the defense missed Holt’s presence on the bench?

“Well, I mean, I think we missed a lot of things in the fourth quarter,” said Brohm. “You can blame it on a lot of things. We didn't function the way we wanted to. I think it's a combination of a lot of things that happened. We need to get it fixed.”

Purdue saw Nevada gain 223 of its 296 yards for the game in the fourth quarter, as the Wolf Pack out scored the Boilermakers, 17-0. Nevada redshirt freshman quarterback Carson Strong was making his first start since his junior year in high school (2016), and he hit 13-of-19 fourth-quarter passes for 167 yards with a touchdown.

"I think watching the film and getting a feel of what exactly happened, which we did, being able to get stops, get in the right call, execute the right call, is extremely important.”

Purdue’s defense played well up until the fourth-quarter meltdown. No doubt, it could have used senior tackle Lorenzo Neal, who hasn’t suited up since suffering a knee injury at Indiana in the 2018 season finale. Brohm had said in August, the earliest Neal could be back is for the Vanderbilt game. Will No. 9 be ready to make his 2019 debut on Saturday?

“That's very doubtful,” said Brohm.

The defense looked to be a bit gassed late in the game, when it had to play extended stretches because of the inefficiencies of the offense and turnovers.

“It gets to a point where you're trying to hold on, you want to play guys that have been in there,” said Brohm. “In general, yes, we would like to rotate more on the defensive line, make sure that we have the ability to play more guys is always the goal. But in every game, little tougher to get that done. We have to make sure we work hard to get that done.”

On the injury front, Purdue cornerback Kenneth Major didn’t finish the game, going down on Nevada’s game-tying touchdown drive. Will he be available on Saturday?

“We'll see on Tuesday,” said Brohm. “Hopeful that he will be.”

Brohm didn’t say if there were any other significant injuries.

“Right now nothing at the top of my head,” he said. “We had a few guys with some nicks and bruises, we'll see how they bounce back come Tuesday.”

Purdue will welcome a Vanderbilt team that has a sense of urgency, too, as it comes off a season-opening 30-6 home loss to powerhouse Georgia.

“When you have a quarterback (Ball State grad transfer Riley Neal) who has that type of experience, it's a huge plus,” said Brohm. “I think they're going to be big and physical. Always try to run the football, open it up when they have to, not beat themselves, let their defense keep them in games as well. They've had success. They've gone to two bowl games in a row, which is very hard to do in that conference. They've played some good football.”

In Game Two last year, Purdue was stunned at home by Eastern Michigan en route to an 0-3 start. Brohm wants to avoid a second loss in a row to a team it’s favored to beat.

“I know they'll be ready to play,” said Brohm. “I know they'll be well-coached. I know that they have some experience on that side of the ball that we've got to contain. We have to be much more physical on defense this week than we ever have been.”

Entering the game, there were worries about a rebuilt offensive line. But Brohm was pleased with the unit.

"Our offensive line for the most part did a good job," said Brohm. "We had one real sack. That was on the quarterback holding the ball too long. When he moved to the left, had an open guy on the left, looking for Rondale (Moore_, he could have gotten the ball out of his hand.

"The run game, certain spots we didn't knock people back very much. We had some penetration. Towards the end of the game they started to come after us a little bit more. We struggled at certain spots that were young guys that hadn't played a whole lot."

Left tackle Grant Hermanns, left guard Alex Criddle, sophomore center Viktor Beach, right guard Matt McCann and right tackle Will Bramel played the entire game.

"In general, they played good enough for us to win," said Brohm. "They need to continue to get better. I thought that for the first game, the five we played gave us good effort, executed at a decent level. While there's plenty of room for improvement, we just got to work hard at getting better. We're going to face much better defenses throughout the course of the season, so we're going to have to be ready for the challenge."

At one point at Nevada, Purdue was penalized for having two players with jersey No. 4 on the field at the same time: SS Marvin Grant and WR Rondale Moore. How did that happen?

"We're going to get that fixed," said Brohm. "We had talked about it before the game. We had a couple jerseys ready to go on. Really in that situation, when the quarterback (Nevada QB Carson Strong also punted) is the punter, that's where the confusion came in.

"Really Marvin is only in our dime package, he's not in any of the punt packages we had. We didn't call dime very much in the game. When we did, he was out there. We tried to stick the punt returner in at the last minute. That's on us as coaches. We'll get that fixed." ...

It was a surprise to see Purdue use junior walk-on backup quarterback Danny Corollo was a pooch-punter on Friday night. Sophomore Zac Collins is listed as the No. 2 punter behind freshman Brooks Cormier.

"Danny is a good athlete," said Brohm. "Throughout the course of the summer, he could punt the ball. We gave him a chance in camp. He's done a good job with it. He went out there, executed, did a very good job. I was happy for him that he was able to contribute like that."

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