NASHVILLE — The following is our Report Card from the 2018 Music City Bowl, Purdue's 63-14 loss to Auburn, on Friday afternoon. This is the final edition of a weekly feature following a review of the game film and numbers.

The two fundamental principles of football are blocking and tackling. Unless the violence of the sport forces a philosophical change where the game is played with just skill position players in a 7-on-7 format with flags, football will likely be defined by these two components. Purdue didn't do either of those fundamental elements well at all Friday and the score reflected it.

Due to the pass protection being inadequate, David Blough didn't have much of a chance to get anything done vertically down the field.

According to Pro Football Focus data for the Music City Bowl, Auburn pressured Blough on 17 of his drop-backs and most of them came on five-man rushes where the extra rusher was a nickel safety or Auburn middle linebacker Deshaun Davis. These are not complicated pressures for Blough, a fifth-year senior, or Jeff Brohm to identify and send in a personnel package that gives the play a chance schematically. In a fundamental sense, Purdue wasn't calling plays designed to counter an unblocked rusher. Therefore, the finger of blame gets pointed at the offensive line and tailbacks being unable to physically handle Auburn's defensive line.

Blough only attempted four passes over 10 yards in the air and it wasn't because he was tentative or too quick to eliminate the one-on-one matchups. On Purdue's first possession, Auburn cornerback Jamel Dean created some pushing and shoving with Terry Wright and the officials let the physicality go without a flag. Wright was livid and Auburn knew they could put their hands on Purdue receivers all afternoon while the Boilermaker playmakers on the outside never really seemed to handle it.

Purdue's quarterback also didn't have enough time for the deep routes to develop. Auburn defensive tackle Derrick Brown (three tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss) showcased his case to be a first-round pick by dominating at certain times against Purdue's line during the first three quarters of action.

When Blough had time to throw or made a solid decision, he usually did. Blough hit 10 of his 19 completions without pressure for first downs and Purdue was moving the ball through the air with passes to Rondale Moore and the two tight ends. The issue was that the times Blough had a clean pocket to work from were few and far between.

Grade: D

This grade should probably be an incomplete because Brohm's offensive philosophy of passing to set up the run never got put in place because Purdue was behind 21-0 just eight minutes into the game.

The seven-yard jet sweep touchdown run to Rondale Moore was effective because of Moore's ability to get the corner on those carries despite Auburn's secondary having an angle to the pylon. The trick-play formation that resulted in a pop pass to Moore went for a first down because it allowed Rondale Moore to have space in the middle of the field.

However, the combination of Markell Jones and D.J. Knox went for just 52 yards on 16 carries and it seemed Purdue was running the ball to chew clock to shorten a game that was decided very quickly and give Blough a break from the pass-rush onslaught. Auburn's defensive tackles dominating the Purdue offensive line from guard to guard made running the ball and creating a play-action element an impossibility.

Grade: F

Rondale Moore, who finished with 167 all-purpose yards and 104 yards on offense, looked like the only member of the offense that could find a significant role in Auburn's starting 11 offense.

Blough's two interceptions were costly as Auburn turned each of them into touchdowns in the first half. Purdue's offensive line looked overmatched all game long, a credit to Auburn. Purdue's offense vs. Auburn's defense was a mismatch from the first snap.

Grade: F

This was the easiest grade of Purdue's 2018 season. Purdue failed in every aspect and at all three levels of its pass defense Friday. The defensive line, which was supposed to add quickness and athleticism badly missed the physicality of Lorenzo Neal in the middle and continued its ineptness in generating a pass rush push from the edges.

The linebackers were overmatched in trying to corral the check-down options and freshman Jaylan Alexander seemed to miss several assignments on Auburn's play-action passes, including the touchdown on the game's third play. The secondary allowed Auburn receivers to get behind them consistently and failed to make tackles to limit the damage of Stidham having more than adequate time in the pocket. Of his 21 dropbacks in the game, Auburn's quarterback felt pressure on only four attempts and Purdue linebacker Cornel Jones produced the only quarterback hit of the game.

With Purdue trying to walk Jacob Thieneman closer to the line of scrimmage in basically a hybrid linebacker spot, the senior cornerback duo of Antonio Blackmon and Tim Cason couldn't stay with Auburn receivers with no backside help.

Cason missed what would've been his first career interception on Auburn's second drive as he properly jumped the route over the middle but couldn't hang on to the potentially momentum-generating play. It's likely not a coincidence that was Stidham's only attempt on a crossing route over the middle.

Grade: F

In the middle of the 2018 season, Jeff Brohm wanted his defense to play more aggressively and his attitude was that if that came at the cost of some big plays given up, so be it. So it would logically make sense that Purdue was getting burned by lining up too many players near the line of scrimmage to stuff the run. This wasn't the case Friday as Auburn averaged 5.7 yards per rush in the opening quarter.

The play-action fakes in the passing game, which are a staple of Malzahn's play-calling tendencies, worked because the run game with Kam Martin was getting to the second level of Purdue's defense consistently.

The jet sweep by Anthony Schwartz was effective as Purdue didn't get any push from the defensive ends. By the time Schwartz got to the hash mark, he was gone for at least 10 yards until a secondary member could clean up the play.

When Auburn put its backup tailbacks and linemen in the game, Purdue had better luck creating third-down situations but at that point it was unclear how high Auburn's motivation to score really was.

Grade: D-

This will go down as one of the worst defensive performances in school history and the statistics aren't unnecessarily inflating what was poor execution and a poor effort at times by the Boilermakers. Auburn broke the Southeastern Conference record for points in any bowl game, set a new bowl game mark for points in a half and JaTavious Whitlow set an Auburn record for touchdowns in a bowl game with seven minutes remaining in the first quarter.

Junior linebacker Markus Bailey said it best when he was asked about the Auburn speed and the All-Big Ten selection said Purdue's defense seemed helpless.

"They were getting a lot of deep shots on us. Sometimes it felt like we couldn't do anything about it," Bailey said.

Grade: F

Two weeks ago, Purdue special teams coordinator Mark Tommerdahl lamented the fact that his return unit needs to find better ways, and likely better personnel, to get more space for Moore. This was never more evident than on the three kick returns by the Purdue freshman. While a 24-yard average is exceptional, it looks even more impressive when you realize that Purdue's coverage unit didn't block the gunners once and the interior blocking wasn't acceptable enough to produce momentum-changing plays. Moore got those 63 return yards directly from his speed and superior athleticism.

In his final collegiate game, Joe Schopper had two punts downed inside the 20-yard line. Unfortunately for the All-Big Ten punter, this was a contest where field position was only going to matter in how long it was going to take Auburn to find the end zone.

Grade: C+

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