One week, Purdue's running game blows up with the offensive line opening massive holes for Markell Jones, and QB David Blough is shredding defenses by sitting in a clean pocket and not being touched.
The next, Jones has to work too hard to find creases, and Blough can't keep the ball out of opposing defenders' hands.
Another week, Jones races through defenders for a 100-plus-yard day and Blough showcases precision passing despite pressure creeping into the backfield on occasion.
The next, the O-line crumbles, Jones can't generate anything and Blough can't stay upright with a deluge of blitzers and edge rushers.
And that's just the up-and-down of Purdue's offense over four games this season.
The defense has had a performance in which it allowed not even 70 yards rushing and, the next, it allowed 400. It was unable to get home on QBs for sacks one week and then swarmed other QBs and produced big sack totals the next. It shows a unit in sync by filling gaps and limiting big plays one week and seems confounded on where to fill the next.
In three-plus seasons with Darrell Hazell as head coach, the Boilermakers still are seeking consistent play. In each opportunity this season to win back-to-back games — after beating EKU, then Nevada — Purdue has lost badly, an average margin of defeat by 30.5 points.
So how does Purdue (2-2) level out what Hazell has called a “roller coaster” season?
“You’ve got to play better and you string some together,” Hazell said Tuesday during his weekly press conference. “That’s a lot easier said than done. You’ve got to play better, and the one thing we’ll know is every game will be hard. We’re not going to walk into a game and beat people by 21, 14 points, but we’ve got to find a way to win those games that we need to win and it’ll all be hard. There’s no question about it.
“It’s about the details. It always will be. When you fix those details and trust them and work them over and over again and you figure it out, that’s when you start stringing them together. Until then, you don’t.”
Those details will be stressed during Tuesday’s practice, the first full session after Purdue lost 50-7 in the Big Ten opener in College Park, Md. Hazell said he’ll only spend “two minutes” talking to the players about that Maryland game Tuesday before shifting full focus on Illinois, the first West Division game for Purdue this season.
The Illini (1-3) and first-year coach Lovie Smith also are looking for their first league victory, and Smith said the matchup is “two teams that need a win in the worst way.”
Hazell said his players haven’t fallen into a here-we-go-again mentality after the loss, despite it being an all-too-common theme over the last four seasons. He said the team’s leadership has tried to keep the season in perspective, and that’s especially the case with a division opponent upcoming.
Hazell and Purdue players have said their goal is to win the division.
“If you stand around saying ‘woe is me’ and then look at the rest of the conference, everybody on our side of the conference has one loss except for one team. It’s a very important game because we’re on our side of the conference,” Hazell said. “When you look at the big picture of things, playing people on your side matters.
“We need to have a great practice (Tuesday), energy and execution, and then really starting to feel good about ourselves because we’ve been a little bit (up and down), so we have to start feeling good about ourselves again (Tuesday) when we leave the field.”
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