Bucket Game Match-up to Watch: Purdue’s Creativity vs. IU’s Discipline

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Every college football fan knows that Purdue’s head coach Jeff Brohm is one of the best and most creative offensive minds in the game. “He does a great job,” Indiana head coach Tom Allen said of Brohm, “(it) makes for a lot of sleepless nights when you try to get ready for the variety of things he may do. I know that's why they do it. I'm sure they have a lot of fun doing that and try to make our lives defensively miserable. It's the unknown.”

In the last Bucket Game in West Lafayette Brohm used a fake punt to help sink the Hoosiers bowl hopes and this season he has gone back to his bag of tricks for plays like wide receiver sweeps, double passes and much more. So how does a team prepare for all these things? Tom Allen gave his answer on Monday.

“You have to work on it,” Allen explained, “you can't obsess about it. It's disciplined eyes and technique. I think disciplined eyes are the technique. Oftentimes what they do, you lose your guy or if you're playing zone you lose leverage, get caught up thinking it's a run, this or that, variety of things they may choose to do. Definitely keeps you on your toes, makes you have to work on them. We will. But you also just got to react. You don't want to be obsessing with things that might happen. You have to react to what you see, trust your eyes, be disciplined, play fast, physical, play with confidence.”

With the forecast calling for rain in West Lafayette Saturday trick plays may come few and far between, but the Hoosiers will still have to be ready. With poor footing, it just means that trusting their eyes and being disciplined is more important for the Hoosiers as one bad step will lead to a huge play for the Boilermakers.

Purdue does not have to lean on the trick play to move the ball on offense, but that doesn’t mean they won’t pull out every stop to beat the Hoosiers Saturday. Purdue boasts the second-best passing attack in the Big Ten, behind Indiana, at 301 yards per game. Wide receiver David Bell, a true freshman, sits at fourth in the conference in receiving yards and Brohm will do anything to get the ball in his hands. The Hoosiers also have to be aware of when tight end Brycen Hopkins is at all times as well. He is ninth in the Big Ten in receiving yards with 688 on 53 catches.

It will be Purdue’s final game of the 2019 season and as Dan Fouts told Brent Musberger in The Water Boy, “It’s the last game of the year Brent, can’t hold anything back now.” Jeff Brohm will not hold anything back this week and Tom Allen, Kane Wommack and the Hoosier defense must stay focused and disciplined on defense.