Ground to Dust, TCU defeats Purdue 34-13

Sports is really little more than narratives. The narratives that we use to describe our hopes for our team, the narratives that we use to explain those teams’ realities. Rarely does this ante-reasoning match the a posteriori reality. But these are the stories we tell ourselves.

And the story we tell ourselves about this Purdue team is that they have enough, coaching, talent, creativity, whatever, to withstand the lost of five critical pieces on both sides of the ball. That Jack Plummer would be enough to cover for the Big Ten’s most prolific passer. I mean, who doesn’t love the backup who comes in for the established starter and unexpectedly dominates? The a posteriori reality would not bear that out.

TCU is not a great team. They’re not bad, certainly in the top third of teams Purdue will play this year, will probably be on the cusp of a ranking all season. But they’re a bit inconsistent at QB, don’t quite have the high level talent in their top-3 wide receivers, and overall aren’t quite the juggernaut that they’ve been at times under Gary Patterson on the defensive side. This is the type of team that Purdue should have a good shot at beating, and perhaps a bellwether for how they are developing as a program. Beat only the teams you are clearly better than, then beat your peers (I’d put TCU in roughly the same bracket as Purdue, even if at different intra-group extremes), then beat the teams traditionally better than you. Brohm moved this team past the unmentionable lose-to-everyone phase into phase one above, and the team is primed to take that next step.

But of course, injuries and a tough schedule (no great teams, but filled to the brim with solid teams with realistic bowl aspirations) have thus far stalled that push. After today’s game, doesn’t Purdue look like a team that once again sneaks into a bowl with six wins? Maybe that’s not so bad, considering the injury adversity that they are forced to endure, but all of us who follow Purdue are chomping at the bit, waiting to break through that wall that separates the “oh yeah they aren’t bad” from the “this is a team you should worry about.”

Tonight’s game was ugly, aside from the cool September Saturday in West Lafayette, the lights and the raucous crowd. TCU figured out early in the third quarter that the simple elegance of a well-functioning passing attack is unwarranted against this Purdue team. All they needed to do was run the read-action - even with their freshman QB, who seemed to grab the starting job with both hands against the Boilermakers - and then do it again. Purdue put up a fight, but again, injuries limited a team that was already fairly limited - at least when it came to the depth chat - and before too long they were breaking off 8-12 yards a run and there wasn’t a damn thing Purdue could do about it.

It’s almost not worth talking about Purdue anemic offense, given how little they saw the field. And while on paper it may look like Rondale Moore was kept safely under wraps, the fact remains that this team didn’t have the ability, in terms of QB ability or OL protection, to even get the ball reasonably close to him. Yeah, he had a couple bad drops early, but it didn’t matter, it couldn’t have. Darius Anderson made sure of that.

So what now? Best case scenario is some of these week to week injuries get better in time for the 9/28 match up again Minnesota and perhaps between the increased health and a boost from the knowledge that the Boiled Sports brain trust will be in West Lafayette in full they can right the ship and show us a little something interest. Worst case scenario, we got a glimpse of the rest of the season and we’re forced to once again explain our a posteriori reality and try again next year. It all comes back to narratives.

Getting the brakes beat off of you never feels good, and even if you’re feeling positive the notion that a butt kicking this bad is even *possible* sticks in your throat a little. But maybe we can take a couple positives from this loss (Anderson’s 4th quarter TD reception being one, Plummer not completely melting into an anxiety puddle being another), perhaps even grow in appreciation for what we have when injuries haven’t taken out five of our top six players (will the Sindelair doubters at least speak a little quieter now?)

This wasn’t the funnest way to spend my evening, but it’s just one data point. This team, this coaching staff…they can all do better. I expect them to. And if they don’t, well I’ll have to story to explain that too.