It Just Means More: Purdue Beats Tennessee, 48-45

It Just Means More: Purdue Beats Tennessee, 48-45

J Money
2021

(Photo credit: Dylan Kuhn)

What the hell did we just witness? (Besides Purdue tearing Tennessee’s heart out and showing it to them in yet another sport.)

That was how bowl games should be, especially the ones that have no bearing on the national championship. You want to play those games smart? Fine. But the rest should have no punting and I’m also fine with teams just playing without safeties….which both Purdue and Tennessee seemed to do periodically.

What?

I’m not gonna try to recap this whole game because I mean… I don’t know where to start and the bourbon in my basement isn’t going to drink itself.

Go home, Music City Bowl, you’re drunk.

Adian O’Connell went from being rumored to be out of the game to having yet another AOC distribution of wealth kinda night. He threw for 534 yards and five TDs. He threw for 132 yards in the final three minutes of the fourth. He did this all with guys playing quite a number of positions that had to have most of you looking for that media guide you thought you had memorized back in August. Is Aidan O’Connell already part of the Cradle of Quarterbacks? I’d vote yes and we still have a 4000 yard season ahead of us from him.

Broc Thompson won game MVP honors despite playing on two busted wheels, hauling in seven catches, 217 yards and two TDs. Broc had 240 yards and two TDs on the season coming into today. However, this proves how deep Purdue has been at WR – and you get to see Broc do this all next season.

Purdue had guys play who had barely – if ever – seen the field this season. Catches were made by Deion Burks (zero all season), Colin Sullivan (no stats in any game prior to today) and Dylan Downing. This was an all hands on deck game and the deckhands came to play.

Tennessee showed a lot of fight, though, so you gotta give them credit. They almost were able to beat a Purdue team without David Bell, Big George, Milton Wright and many others, while playing a de facto home game. Good work, Tennessee!

The Tennessee defense wasn’t much interested in playing defense, it seemed, though.

Seriously, though, their QB Hendon Hooker threw for 378 yards, five TDs and no picks. He also rushed for 59 yards and proved hard for Purdue to ever tackle clean.

Which brings me to the complaints about Tennessee getting “robbed.” Now, I’ll admit that it sure looked like that final Tennessee push in the first OT should have been a TD. However, his forward momentum was ruled to have stopped AND – and this is important and nobody is talking about this – his teammate is dragging him into the end zone. You cannot do that at any level of football, not even in the SEC. Watch closely.

If Tennessee fans want to blame someone for the loss, they have plenty of practice blaming bad coaches over the years. And I gotta say, I told my BS brethren this season that I thought Tennessee finally got it right when they hired Heupel. After the Dooleys and Butches and Pruitts, they fell into a seemingly competent coach. Whoo boy, I don’t know if Josh Heupel was having a bad night or he ate too much Hattie B’s last night, but wow was he atrocious today.

You can make a top five of terrible decisions. Honorable mention – and one everyone will forget – was when he had a one point lead and decided to go for it on 4th down despite being in FG range. They were at the Purdue 24 after a 15 play, 61 yard drive up 31-30 in the fourth quarter.

Oh, hey, how about having his QB drop back to pass while in Purdue’s end of the field in the final minute  of the first half, only to see him fumble and allow Purdue to score a TD to take the lead into the half? That’s an insanely bad turn of events.

But those aren’t the worst decisions. At the end of regulation when despite the insane back and forth of the final three minutes, Tennessee has the ball at the Purdue 42 with 18 seconds to go. What does Coach Heupel call when all he needs is about 10-15 more yards against a gassed Purdue D that had already been shredded this quarter? Well, of course, he goes for the home run. The ol’ smartest guy in the room decision. Hooker overthrows his receiver by ten yards. So now it’s 3rd and 3 and Tennessee again – inexplicably – goes for the home run play. And fails. It wasn’t even close. So now it’s 4th down and bozo decides to go for it and Hooker barely scrambles the three yards to set up his kicker for a 56 yard field goal to win the game. Which, predictably, had no shot.

Then in OT, Heupel twice goes for it on 4th down in the first OT, almost like he’s begging to be stopped. The first time, only Hooker’s elusiveness saved them from not even being close to scoring. Instead, UT winds up down near the goal line and has 4th and goal from the one.

Now, at this point, if you want to argue you should go for the TD because of how porous both defenses were in the 4th quarter, I’m fine with that argument. But you could also say that it’s time to get some points on the board and hope that Purdue’s offense – which went 3 and out the last time they were on the field – is equally exhausted. Heupel chose to go and Purdue stopped them, no matter what slack-jawed Tennuhsee fans tell you.

It was academic at that point, as Mitchell Fineran shook off a rocky middle of the season to seal Purdue’s first 9-win season since 2003. Purdue did what no Purdue football team has done in a long time – they got better as the meat grinder of a season went along. Purdue won 6 of their last 8 (and 5 of their final 6!), with the only losses being to Wisconsin and Ohio State.

There are a lot of weapons back next year, including the guy who the broadcast team wants you to know was a walk-on. I can’t wait.

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