Ohio State's last three opponents had a combined two losses before playing the Buckeyes.
Purdue
Boilermakers
Both of those negative tallies to win-loss columns came from Nebraska, which Ohio State narrowly slid past in a 21-17 final. The Buckeyes swallowed criticism after that performance and responded with an emotionally charged 20-13 win at No. 3 Penn State that set their season back on track.
After three straight slobber-knocking one-score games between those bouts and Ohio State's prior 32-31 loss at now-No. 1 Oregon, a cruise control type of contest should finally be in order this week against Purdue, which might be the worst team in the Big Ten.
There aren't many positive things to say about the Boilermakers this year, but they do at least have one of the coolest nicknames in the sport and NASA has a lot to thank the university for.
They Stink
We here at Five Things to Know are not in the business of sugarcoating things, and there's hardly been anything sweet about Purdue's football season in 2024. They stink.
There are 18 members of the new-look Big Ten Conference and 17 of them have won a game in conference play. Only Purdue has not. After the Buckeyes, the Boilermakers face No. 6 Penn State at home, Michigan State on the road and No. 8 Indiana on the road. Only the matchup with the Spartans seems winnable, and even then, the black and gold will be hefty underdogs in a hostile environment.
Perhaps Purdue's last big chance at a conference victory came at home against Northwestern last week, and the Boilermakers fell in overtime 26-20. They went out with a whimper, failing to convert a 4th-and-6 after starting on offense in the extra period and allowing Northwestern to go 40 yards (there was a 15-yard penalty on the Wildcats after the fourth down) in three plays for the game-winning touchdown.
Thus, Purdue is on track to be the first Big Ten team to go winless in conference play since Indiana in 2021. The Boilermakers' offense ranks 119th out of 134 college football teams in points per game (20.3), 111th in yards per game (334.8), 112th in passing yards per game (185.8) and 75th in rushing yards per game (149).
Purdue's defense is 129th in points allowed per game (36.9), 121st in yards allowed per game (448.1), 104th in passing yards allowed per game (244.9) and 121st in rushing yards allowed per game (203.3). The Boilermakers' only win this season was their opener against FCS Indiana State, and Purdue has followed that result by losing all seven of its games against FBS opponents. Five of those losses came by at least three scores, the worst of them a 66-7 drubbing by Notre Dame and a 52-6 shelling at Wisconsin.
In all that muck the Boilermakers did put on a surprise classic at then-No. 23 Illinois, going for two and a win in overtime only to have backup quarterback Ryan Browne sacked and lose 50-49.
Wallowing in the Walters Era
The transfer portal can deal new coaches a losing hand at non-blueblood programs as talent leaves for greener pastures, and Walters didn't walk into the best situation after former Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm suddenly left the program to become head coach at Louisville.
Brohm won at least six games in four of his five full seasons coaching the Boilermakers but did have a 4-8 campaign mixed in, so Walters going 4-8 in year one in 2023 wasn't a fireable offense. But going 1-11 or mixing in a surprise win at Michigan State to go 2-10 will at least make his seat warm, regardless of how hard it is to build a great football team in West Lafayette, Indiana.
It'd be different if Walters took the program over with much of a head coaching track record, but this is his first head coaching job. He made his name as a defensive coordinator, first at Missouri and then at Illinois.
Purdue hasn't fired a coach after two seasons or less since 1921, when it let go of William Henry Dietz for illegal recruiting after one 1-6 season. The only coach since then with a tenure shorter than three years with the Boilermakers is Elmer Burnham, who led the team to a 9-0 record in his second season in 1943 before bolting to become head coach at Rochester, citing a desire to coach at a much smaller school where players simply played for the love of the game.
Firing Walters after this season would break new ground for the athletic department. But given this year's results and what is currently the nation's composite No. 86 recruiting class – though Walters and staff did sign the No. 27 class last year – it has to be on the table.
Wild Card
Purdue quarterback Hudson Card is capable of big performances, even if they've been rare of late. (Credit: Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images)
One of the first things Walters did upon landing the gig at Purdue was bring in a transfer quarterback from Texas to lead his program into the future, that being Hudson Card.
In 2022, Card ran the show for the Longhorns for four games while Quinn Ewers was injured and finished his season 75-of-108 (69.4%) for 928 yards and six touchdowns with just one interception. That included what might still be the best outing of his career, a 303-yard, three-touchdown day with no interceptions on Oct. 1, 2022, against West Virginia.
Card's only had one 300-yard performance since joining the Boilermakers, and it took 46 pass attempts with one touchdown and one interception in a 35-20 loss to Syracuse last year. He finished 2023 with a completion percentage of 58.9, picking up 2,387 yards through the air with 15 touchdowns and eight interceptions. He gained a meager 6.5 yards per attempt, down more than 2 yards from his 8.6 mark at Texas the previous year.
A bit of progression in his fifth year of college ball has Card back up to 61.7% completions with 6.7 yards per attempt, but that hasn't translated to wins for Purdue. Card is still capable of big games – he went 24-of-25 for 273 yards and four touchdowns in the Boilermakers' lone victory over the Sycamores – but the situation around him has deteriorated to the point that only one of his pass catchers is over 215 yards this year, tight end Max Klare, who has 30 receptions for 462 yards and two touchdowns.
Think Penn State's wide receivers were bad? Purdue's best, Jahmal Edrine, averages 2.5 receptions and 35.8 yards per game. He and Card have both missed two games with injury in 2024.
Purdue walks into the Shoe on Saturday and no Rondale Moore is walking in with them.
Burly Boiler Makers from Purdue
The year is 1891. Purdue football, in its fourth year of existence, had just waltzed into Wabash's house as a substantial underdog and dismantled the Little Giants 44-0.
Eager to defend the honor of their hometown team, newspapers in Crawfordsville, Indiana fired shots at the "Herculean wearers of black and gold," the headline for one of their game recaps reading "Slaughter of Innocents."
Another headline in the Daily Argus-News, also native to Crawfordsville, read "Wabash Snowed Under by the Burly Boiler Makers From Purdue."
See, Wabash is a liberal arts college and was attended almost exclusively by those of high society in the 1890s. There was an heir of cultural elitism, a looking down upon Purdue – which specialized in educating working-class young adults in skilled trades – from the Wabash community. Calling Purdue's football team "Boiler Makers," literally people who build boilers, was meant as an insult. A Lafayette newspaper fired back the following retort post-haste:
As everyone knows, Purdue went down to Wabash last Saturday and defeated their eleven. The Crawfordsville papers have not yet gotten over it. The only recourse they have is to claim that we beat their 'scientific' men by brute force. Our players are characterized as 'coal heavers,' 'boiler makers' and 'stevedores.'
That same fall, Purdue acquired a working locomotive engine, so the black and gold took the Crawfordsville newspaper's jab and punched it right on their chest, where it's remained for 133 years. A true win for the working class, and part of the identity that established Purdue University as one of the nation's premier engineering schools.
Aside: No one refers to a football team as an "eleven" anymore. One of the few elements of 1890s society we should bring back, I propose.
Moon Men
Busts of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan at the Purdue University chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon. (Credit: Alex Martin/Journal and Courier / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, the first American to orbit Earth in a spacecraft and the first man to walk on the moon, were both born in Ohio.
If one school is more synonymous with moonwalks than any, however, it is Purdue. Armstrong graduated a Boilermaker and Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon in 1972, did as well. Two of the three astronauts who perished in the Apollo 1 tragedy, the first flight crew of the NASA program Apollo that eventually got humanity to the moon, were also Purdue graduates, Roger Chaffee and Virgil "Gus" Grissom.
A total of 27 Boilermakers have become astronauts, earning the university the nickname "Cradle of Astronauts." Purdue spacemen and spacewomen have flown in the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programs for NASA, a long list of space shuttle crafts, international space stations and even some of the first commercial voyages to outer space.
