After watching the game broadcast, we take a more detailed look at certain aspects of Purdue's win over Indiana in the annual rivalry game.

It's hard to imagine a player who finished with a game-high 141 yards on 12 receptions with two touchdowns as an effective decoy but that's exactly how Purdue managed to get some scoring and big-chunk plays early Saturday.

After getting Moore the football six times on its first two drives, Purdue used him as a decoy on its first scoring play, an 11-yard touchdown to Isaac Zico. On this second-and-nine play, Purdue lined up with three wide receivers close to the near sideline and immediately Blough knew he had a potential matchup advantage. This is a new wrinkle to Purdue's offense as the Boilermakers didn't line up Rondale Moore in his normal slot position but yet had Zico lined up in the slot with Moore between Zico and outside receiver Terry Wright. At that pre-snap moment, Blough realized the Hoosiers lined up linebacker Dameon Willis opposite a deep-ball receiver.

Purdue then runs stop routes with Wright and Moore to allow the angle for Zico's flag route to the corner of the end zone. When third-year sophomore nickel back Marcelino Ball stops and turns toward Moore, Blough can immediately let the ball go toward the back pylon and know he's got the matchup he wants because Indiana has decided on double-team coverage on Moore. If Indiana had allowed Ball to float and backpedal toward the end zone. The dump-off pass to Moore allows for the freshman receiver to have an angle toward the middle of the field that is now wide open. Blough does a great job of looking right at Moore to hold the Indiana defensive backs in the highlighted box to allow Zico to get deep in his route.

In the photo below, Indiana rolled three defenders toward Moore in the middle of the field well below the first-down markers on a third-and-12 situation. This emphasis toward limiting the catch-and-run threat of Moore allowed tight end Cole Herdman to slip into the deep flat and be wide open for this 22-yard gain.

So while Moore was more than effective with the ball in his hands, the Purdue freshman certainly had the attention of Indiana's defense on nearly every passing play he was on the field.

The two sacks for Purdue in the second quarter came from pressure from the inside. Giovanni Reviere got his third sack of his season from the interior. Purdue showcased a five-man rush with a pair of linebackers on the outside (Markus Bailey and Cornel Jones), with Kai Higgins dropping in coverage. Reviere simply used a basic swim move to get through the one-on-one block of guard Simon Stepaniak to get to quarterback Peyton Ramsey. With Bailey and Jones rushing on the outside, Indiana tailback Stevie Scott was forced to chip Jones to help the right tackle.

On the next series, Anthony Watts used the same swim move to get vertically up the field while Derrick Barnes and Higgins kept the edge set to head off scrambling opportunities for Ramsey. When Ramsey panicked and tried to run up the middle, Markus Bailey cleaned up the sack as he was spying the quarterback and the tailback coming out of the backfield as an emergency dump-off option.

According to Pro Football Focus data, more than half of Purdue's 18 quarterback pressures came from the defensive tackle position even after Lorenzo Neal came out of the game on the first possession. This statistic might signal an amount of depth at the defensive tackle spot for the future of Purdue football while it still needs to find consistent pass-rushers at the on the edges.

While it's easy to suggest the play of Purdue offensive tackles Eric Swingler and Matt McCann was less than ideal Saturday, the sacks given up weren't exactly entirely on them. One of the first sacks earned by Indiana came off an overload blitz to the right side where either one of two things has to happen for a pass to get off quickly. Either Brycen Hopkins has to chip the blitzing linebacker and allow McCann to focus on the defensive end with his hand in the ground or Blough has to recognize that one blitzer is coming free and get a hot-route option prepared in his pre-snap routine.

Blough said after the game that back-to-back sacks in the third quarter were on him because he held on to the football too long after the offensive line gave him plenty of time to survey the field.

It's unclear following the game whether Michael Mendez replacing Swingler at left tackle was a performance-based substitution or injury-related or a little bit of both. However, Purdue did make pre-game adjustment to have Blough get deeper in his drops to give him an extra half-second to deliver the ball. The drawback to this adjustment is it can obviously backfire as well on deeper throws with Blough not having the strongest arm. Either way, from either confidence and/or efficiency standpoints, it seems as if Purdue's deep pass game could benefit from the return of an injured Grant Hermanns to oversee the left side of the offensive line.

- Four Purdue defensive players played every snap of action Saturday: Derrick Barnes, Kenneth Major, Navon Mosley and Brennan Thieneman. Jaylan Alexander played only three snaps and it was during the possession that Bailey removed himself from the game with leg cramps.

- Indiana used nine different players in coverage against Rondale Moore and the freshman receiver caught a pass against eight of them. The deep-target matchup that Purdue enjoyed the most was against safety Devon Matthews, which included the 56-yard touchdown.

- Purdue's pass blocking from guard to guard was exceptional as Dennis Edwards, Kirk Barron and Shane Evans allowed just one quarterback pressure in 44 drop-backs Saturday.

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