Behind the Gaudy Numbers is an Ineffective Offense That Doomed IU
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Written by Rylie Kyhn
The Hoosiers fell to the Boilermakers in the Old Oaken Bucket game for the second year in a row and Purdue took home the bucket. Indiana was pretty unimpressive in the final regular season game and they didn’t seem to come out very ready to play. This is a game where the numbers lie because Indiana’s offense produced 487 yards compared to Purdue’s 440 but the Boilermakers came out with the win.
They scored only one touchdown the entire first half and then looked unimpressive in the second, although they did put up 14 points. They scored only 21 total and they look like they had no sense of urgency or desire to score except for the final scoring drive of the game when Ramsey hit Westbrook in the end zone for a touchdown. The offense couldn’t finish their drives or capitalize when they needed to and they played it safe the whole game.
“I think more than anything we just didn't get a clean pocket so we could get the ball thrown down the field,” said Coach Allen.
The offense was quite ineffective and it seemed like they could get nothing going throughout the entire game. Ramsey was sacked twice, threw one interception, and Purdue had four tackles for a loss. Stevie Scott ran for 104 yards and one touchdown but the numbers offensively came from the passing game. Ramsey was 36/51 and 345 yards and Westbrook and Hale led the receiving core with a combined 206 yards but it wasn’t enough to put up points.
Throwing the long ball has been something we have seen more out of the Hoosier offense over the last few games but they seemed to take not as aggressive of an approach today. The next step for this offense seems to be looking to throwing in the middle of the field and trying to throw the deep ball.
“You go through and evaluate, you look and see, where are the areas we got to take advantage of now to be able to create the one-on-one matchups that you're trying to get to, be able to take advantage of the safeties being involved in the run game, to be able to get the ball deep down the middle or on the perimeter, to evaluate how we can do a better job of that,” said Coach Allen.
This offseason they are going to have to look at the scheme and really evaluate what they want the offense to look like next year because there were moments of greatness but just not enough of them and that seemed to be the theme all season.