This Saturday night’s Purdue-Hawaii game has all the makings of a complete mess. As detailed in earlier posts, Purdue is playing like a bunch of bumbling idiots, nearly allowing the national joke that is Indiana football to hang around in their game last Saturday.

Saturday night at 11 PM, Eastern Time, Purdue will take on the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. Oh, what’s that, you say? They dropped the “Rainbow” from their name? Can’t imagine why they would do that. It’s so…cute.

Anyway, there are a number of things working against Purdue this weekend, the biggest of which is the dude pictured here, Colt Brennan. I don’t know where these kids get these names but this guy is more like a video game quarterback than a human one. Seriously.

I mean, I know he plays in the WAC, which isn’t respected by too many knowledgeable football guys, but the numbers he has put up this year are absolutely astounding. Take a look at his player card on ESPN.com and let’s talk some numbers.

Hawaii has played 11 games this year and is 9-2. Brennan has thrown for 4,155 yards in 11 games and has tossed 48 touchdowns against just eight interceptions. Forty-eight touchdowns. That’s ridonkulous.

Video Game Colt has thrown for over 400 yards in six of the Warriors last eight games, with the two sub-400 yard slacker performances (330 and 333) coming in blowout wins of 49-30 and 68-10.

Speaking of scoring in the 60s, Hawaii has cleared sixty points four times this season, including three straight right before last week’s average 54-point showing. In fact, when I said “average 54-point showing,” I was only kind of kidding. Hawaii is averaging 49 points per game this season, including their two losses. In their wins, they are averaging about 54 points.

Now, granted, these Tecmo Bowl scores have been against powerhouses such as Utah and Idaho State and when Hawaii faced a team from a serious conference, they got beat by Alabama 25-17. However, that was the first game of the season and it was on the road. Purdue’s defense, while not looking brilliant all season, is actually pretty good and the ends have been putting some pressure on pretty mobile QBs from Illinois and Indiana. Will they be able to put some pressure on Colt Brennan and perhaps get a fumble here or there or a poorly-thrown pass? And if so, will the Boiler defenders be able to hang onto balls thrown right to them, something they could not do against Indiana, as no fewer than three balls bounced off their numbers like they were wearing Kevlar vests? We shall see.

As boilerdowd mentions below, Purdue’s bowl position has indeed been locked (heading to the Champs Sports Bowl, formerly known as the Citrus Bowl). In addition, whenever the Boilers are in a nice climate (i.e., bowl games) Coach Tiller seems to say, “Go out and enjoy yourselves, boys! You’ve earned it!” If he does this in Hawaii, we can see the Boilers being down 21-0 before they’ve even realized you’re not supposed to play football in leis and flip-flops.

The ten-win season that is possible this season is certainly a lot more important to fans of the program than to the players and coaches. For all the myriad reasons listed above, we fully expect the Boilers to lose in paradise on Saturday night.

I personally do think Purdue is good enough to beat Hawaii and the Boiler defense is probably better than any they’ve seen all year, but I have zero confidence that Tiller, Spack and company will have the crew ready to ball in Oahu, which is kind of a shame since Purdue has a chance to win a game against a ranked team on the road.

Predictions in the comments are welcome. Mine is Hawaii 33, Purdue 27.