Senior Bentley finishes strong, earns bowl defensive MVP; more

More: Purdue finishes 'storybook' year with bowl victory | Offensive MVP Sindelar shines despite torn ACL | Extra points video analysis ($)

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Ja’Whaun Bentley laid blow after blow this season, sending running backs crumbling to the turf after devastating hits, popping receivers or tight ends who’d venture across the middle of Purdue’s defense.

The Boilermakers’ three-time captain and senior middle linebacker saved his best for his last season, as he thrived in Nick Holt’s aggressive, downhill attacking defense.

And yet, entering the final game of his career Wednesday against Arizona in the Foster Farms Bowl, Bentley had seen 36 starts come and go without registering a sack.

One figured if he finally delivered, it’d come on a blitz, the 250-or-so pounder barreling down the middle of the line and flattening Khalil Tate.

Except it didn’t.

The sack came — but the blow didn’t.

On a third-and-two in the first quarter, Tate rolled and ran away, Bentley in modest pursuit, when the quarterback just stepped out of bounds. Maybe Bentley tapped him afterward. But there it was: Bentley’s first (and only) career sack.

“It was good,” Bentley said. “I knew when he went down, I was like, ‘That’s me.’ I had to make sure my number was seen. It was a long time coming. Was glad I got that one finally.”

He was laughing.

Of course, he could.

Bentley had just helped Purdue finish a season with a winning record for the first time since 2011, had just wrapped his career with a solid eight-tackle day that included that sack and had just taken home Foster Farms Bowl Defensive MVP.

He hadn’t quite allowed himself to savor it all, he said, less than an hour later. But, certainly, he will soon. He’ll reflect on a career that had its bumps — a torn ACL derailing a stellar sophomore season, a slow junior return — but one that also started hot and finished scorching. His 97 tackles led the team, his 11.5 tackles for loss were No. 2 behind Gelen Robinson’s 12.5.

“It’s almost surreal,” Bentley said afterward. “Personally, I’ve come a long way. There’s been a whole lot of ups and downs, to see all the benefits, all the hard work, trainers being with me, fighting through stuff, Coach Holt coming into the picture, helping me with my game. He’s like a dream come true as a coach. One of the best coaches I’ve ever been around.”

For Bentley to have a chance to finally register that sack, he had to play, of course.

He’d missed senior day and the regular-season finale against Indiana with an ankle injury — one that still was bothering him throughout bowl practices. He wasn’t healthy Wednesday either. But that didn’t matter.

“There was no question. I wasn’t missing this game, “ he said. “Suck it up. Just play. It’s not my first time playing (hurt). I’ve played enough games to know what it is. Just played ball. It ain’t killing me, so I’ll be all right.”

D.J. Knox probably shouldn’t have yapped.

At least not toward the Arizona defender he’d just lowered his shoulder on and popped. Sure, Knox had just appeared bottled up on the right side after taking a handoff with about a minute left only to reverse field and get outside to the left side, find some space and then deliver a blow at the end of a 16-yard gain. But the emotions had just been brewing in the junior for so long — the years long frustration of losing, seemingly wasting all the countless hours of hard work — and Purdue was so close to finishing a season with a championship, with a winning record, the response probably was not surprising.

And, maybe, Knox earned the right to let out a scream, a flex, even, with all he’d done to help Purdue achieve what it did Wednesday and in all of 2017.

He was the only back to make it through the season, start to finish. He was the consistent presence, if not always the most-counted on one. He was the try-hard-no-matter-the-moment guy. He was the seize-the-opportunity guy.

Against Arizona, he shot through a hole inside right tackle for a 13-yard touchdown in the second quarter. He turned a fake kneel down at the end of the half into a 30-yard run. He turned a short pass into a 21-yard gain on third-and-10 on Purdue’s go-ahead drive in the final minutes.

In the end, Knox rushed for a season-best 101 yards, a yard off his career-best total, on only 11 carries. He wasn’t offensive MVP — QB Elijah Sindelar earned that after throwing for nearly 400 yards and four TDs, though receivers Greg Phillips and Anthony Mahoungou were candidates, too, with 100-plus-yard, two-TD receiving days — but Knox was crucial to Purdue’s victory.

“In the beginning of the game, I was kind of disappointed with myself, how I gave up that first sack with the corner blitz and I kind of saw it late and didn’t get to it, and it killed the drive. So at that point, I had to just look within myself and be like, ‘Am I going to crumble or am I going to stand strong?’ ” said Knox, who finished the season with 561 yards rushing, five yards shy of Markell Jones' team-high total. “The coaches did a good job of having faith in me and giving me other opportunities to make plays. Whenever I went out there, I just had the mentality that nobody can stop me. They weren’t one of the bigger defenses I’ve faced before, so I liked to challenge them and see what they can do behind the pads. I just tried to be physical the whole game.”

The most-talked about play afterward was Knox’s longest run because of the circumstances, probably.

After Purdue safety Navon Mosley literally took the ball away from QB Khalil Tate, the Boilermakers had the ball on the 32 with 56 seconds left in the half. Purdue lined up in a kneel-down formation with one receiver deep in the backfield, Sindelar under center and Knox and fellow running back Markell Jones crouched to each side of Sindelar.

Sindelar took the snap and slyly tucked the ball into Knox’s belly and then the QB ran off to the right. Knox paused a beat before taking off the opposite direction.

It was a play Purdue had been working on since training camp, players said. Brohm finally called it.

“Every week we practice it and make sure everything is crisp, and what week is this?” Knox said. “You don’t want your practice to go in vein. I was looking for an opportunity like that, and the opportunity presented itself. Everybody on the offense was so excited when he said we’re fitting to run it. We looked at each like, ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’ I’m like, ‘Markell, make sure you hit the dude on the edge.’

“It was good to see it finally happened. I was just excited we could have some success out of that play.”

• Purdue's defense figured it'd have a challenge in slowing Arizona's third-ranked rushing defense, led by quarterback Tate. But the Boilermakers, as they'd done most of the season, rose to it, limiting the Wildcats to only 128 total rushing yards. Tate had only 58 on 20 carries, a 2.9 yard average after entering the game averaging double-digits per carry.

"Our strength on defense is stopping the run. We try to do that every week. It’s been outstanding all year long," Brohm said. "We knew with Khalil, he was going to be dangerous if he gets out on the edge, so we wanted to limit his plays in the running game. Without question, it was going to leave us susceptible in the passing game. We gave him two easy completions where there wasn’t anyone around. That was the disappointing that you don’t want to have happen. But ... we did a good job against him. He’s a special athlete. You’ve got to always contain him and know where he’s at, and I think our defense hung in there and did a great job."

• Tight end Cole Herdman left the game in the first half with an injury and didn't play at all in the second, forcing Brycen Hopkins and true freshman Darius Pittman to play more snaps. Herdman had been nursing a toe injury for the second half of the season, but it's unclear what his injury was Wednesday. He limped off the field after an incomplete pass on a flea flicker but returned to the game to make a big catch over the middle — and then he got tackled low and up-ended on that play. He played on more snap on special teams, but that was it.

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