Purdue football practices every Tuesday of the season. Afterwards, Purdue sends out a few offensive players and offensive coordinator Graham Harrell to media.
November doesn't usually have as nice a day prepared for the team as this one, with bright skies, little wind, and temperatures near 60 degrees. Graham Harrell was wearing a sock cap because he was told it was going to be cold. Instead, just like Purdue's mood, the weather was warm and inviting for halfway through November.
For the first time in over a month, Purdue players talked to the media on the heels of a Purdue victory, a drubbing of Minnesota on Saturday that saw Purdue's offense go for over 350 yards on the ground and 600 as a total offense.
Deion Burks met the mood, laughing about Chipotle's continued snubbing of the wide receiver who transformed his body with the help of the establishment. He's contemplating a switch to Qdoba he joked before getting to the Minnesota victory.
"Offense has always been there," Burks said about his offense's performance on Saturday. After struggling all year to convert yards into points, Purdue's offense exploded for 49 points against Minnesota. It's one more point than the offense put together in the entirety of its recent four game losing streak that saw Purdue fail to score more than 14 points in any game.
"It's just little details that we got to correct and keep going and keep disciplined within our reads," Burks wen ton. Saying it wasn't anything special, just a team finally executing its schemes and plays.
It felt special, watching Purdue's two dynamic rushers, Devin Mockobee and Tyrone Tracy Jr., combined for over 300 yards on the ground including big run after big run.
But it was Burks 42 yard touchdown pass over the top of the defense that might have announced the most exciting and hopeful thing for Purdue going forward - Hudson Card appears right again.
The Texas transfer QB started the game by getting first down with his legs. Something he'd been tentative with for the last month and a half as he's dealt with a collection of injuries. Against Minnesota, Card had 8 carries for 49 yards and a touchdown and kept Minnesota's defense ends in a bind. Card had the burst and athleticism back and he burnt the Golden Gophers early on a key conversion in the first drive. Purdue's first four drives all went for touchdowns in the game and a key element was Card being able to move up the field and in the pocket.
On the touchdown pass to Burks, Card was able to shift, shimmy, and ultimately get clear of what looked like a clear defensive lineman headed towards him. It allowed Burks to get behind the defense and into the end zone.
But Burks and his receivers weren't just active catching passes. Offensive Coordinator Graham Harrell gave a lot of credit to Burks and his receiving corps for Purdue's rushing game, especially the long runs.
"The running game was definitely really clean," Harrell said about his running game.
"I think that you saw something like the 8 to 10 yard runs turn into 40, 50 yard runs because we did a way way better job blocking on the perimeter at the receiver position than we have all year," Harrell would go on to say. "Those guys strained... and played as selfless as I've seen. Most of the touchdowns if you watch, Deion was the most excited one about it. And I think that's a testament to him."
Purdue went into these last three games with the mindset of finishing with momentum for next year. Purdue has accomplished that through the first of those games with its most impressive offensive performance of the Ryan Walters era.
Seeing the running success, seeing the big plays as a direct result of better blocking at the receiver position should help lock Purdue in in its final two games and into next year.
Purdue's season doesn't appear to be as lost as it looked after the four straight losses. Burks and company picked up a valuable lesson against Minnesota and Purdue's running game got to pick up a bunch of yards because of it.
