Purdue Gets Steamrolled by Wisconsin

After a week where the Purdue Boilermakers came close to upsetting one of their arch nemesis Notre Dame, and the Wisconsin Badgers lost on a botched referee call, you figured their Week 4 matchup would bring some excitement. Well, Badger fans wound up excited, while Boilermaker fans were left wondering what happened to the team they watched against Notre Dame last week.

The score ended up being 41-10, but there was really only one number you needed to find in the box score to see why the score was the way it was: 388. That was the number of rushing yards the Badgers had when the final horn sounded. Wisconsin’s M.O. for years has been their unstoppable running game and it seems they haven’t lost a step despite losing star running back Montee Ball to the NFL.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Badgers also scored five times on the ground, including three times by Melvin Gordon.

Purdue looked like their Week 1 selves as they couldn’t stop the Badger’s offense and their own offense couldn’t move the ball down field. At the end of the day, the Boilermakers had 180 total yards of offense, a whopping 22 yards more than what Wisconsin threw for.

On the defensive side, the stories remained the same. Wisconsin made the big plays, giving up only two-of-14 third downs, 45 yards rushing, and picking off Rob Henry once. Purdue’s defense on the other hand, well you’ve already read about their terrific game.

Having to learn a new offense and defense has really put Purdue on their heels, giving other teams a chance to push them over. Everyone knew Purdue was in for a rough year, but multiple 30-plus point losses in the first four games was not on the menu. Unfortunately, it appears there will be many more articles like this for the Boilermakers this season.

Wisconsin looks like they will a team vying for the Big 10 championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl this season, while Purdue will be lucky to walk away with more than the one win they already have. This was just another game that showed how far the Boilermakers have to go before the new officially wears off.

Mathew Muncy is an Indiana Pacers writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @MMuncy, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.