Stats (PDF): Purdue-Vanderbilt box score
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Behind a brilliant second half from Rondale Moore, 500-plus passing yards and six total touchdowns from Elijah Sindelar and two touchdowns from Brycen Hopkins Purdue got in the win column for the first time this season, beating Vanderbilt 42-24 Saturday in Ross-Ade Stadium, a game that included inconsistency on both sides of the ball for the Boilermakers but enough to win against an SEC opponent.
Some instant analysis from the game.
• Rondale Moore was Purdue's closer, its star rising when his team needed him most.
Moore finished with 13 catches for 220 yards and a touchdown, but carried the Boilermakers on the late scoring drives that put this game away.
After Vandy scored to cut a 28-10 Purdue lead by six, Purdue's star accounted for all 75 yards — on three catches — on the Boilermakers' drive in response, capping it with a 34-yard TD catch.
But, this defense just seems to have a hard time closing the door, and that was especially true when it gave up a 75-yard TD on the next snap to make this a game again.
It's never easy.
But Moore responded with a 65-yard catch that set up a touchdown moments after Purdue took possession near its own goal line, then barely averted a disastrous safety on a throwaway.
This was a big-time performance from a big-time player.
• If you're going to be one-dimensional on offense, and if this game was a sign of things to come, Purdue will be, then you'd better be consistent with your one dimension, and Purdue's passing game was not, and that led to the disjointedness that held it back in the first half.
The second half was better, Sindelar's eyesore of a red-zone INT aside, but the total body of work for the passing game was uneven before the half.
Sindelar has been prone to throwing high, and a couple more dropped passes occurred in the first half.
There's never going to be perfection, but when completions there to be made, Purdue needs more of them if the passing game is going to be it's only avenue of production offensively.
It was very inconsistent Saturday, but showed some real signs of potency at its best.
The second half was much more of what Purdue needs to be from an offensive perspective. Sindelar was especially sharp, the bad turnover aside.
• Meanwhile, it's money downs, as they call them, that continue to plague Purdue's defense, first a third-and-18 conversion that set up Vanderbilt's first touchdown and later a 26-yard gain on third-and-27 that set up the Commodores' field goal before halftime. That was all of Vandy's first-half scoring.
Purdue was aggressive on the first of those two plays, bringing a delayed linebacker blitz that arrived a step after Riley Neal released his throw, so it's not like Purdue just sat back and tried to play it safe.
All day, Purdue's defense was solid against the run — KeShawn Vaughn totaled just 56 rushing yards — but big plays in the passing game remain a vulnerability.
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