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SAN FRANCISCO — Elijah Sindelar got benched.

After a back-and-forth, back-and-forth and back-and-forth with David Blough through the season’s first seven games, Purdue first-year coach Jeff Brohm finally decided in late October to stick with one quarterback.

And he did not choose Sindelar.

Not because Sindelar hadn’t been pretty good in the first seven significant games of his career — he spent last season as a redshirt freshman getting thrown in late after games already had been decided — but because Brohm just thought Blough was better-suited to work with the surrounding offensive personnel.

But in the second game after Blough had been anointed the man, he suffered a season-ending injury in the second half. Sindelar, initially, thought Blough was faking, figured he was just hamming it up to get a late-hit flag. And there did seem to be a targeting hit on the play Blough’s ankle dislocated against Illinois. But it wasn’t called, Blough wasn’t faking, and coaches meant it when they told Sindelar, “Get ready.”

Sindelar’s response, essentially, “I’ve been ready.”

He meant he’d literally been throwing on the sidelines throughout the game, which was his normal routine. But he just as easily could have meant otherwise.