3 reasons IU football's disappointing season ends with blowout loss to Purdue

WEST LAFAYETTE -- Indiana's disappointing season came to a fittingly humbling end on Saturday, as Purdue hammered the Hoosiers 44-7 at Ross-Ade Stadium in the Old Oaken Bucket game. The Hoosiers finish the season 2-10 overall, 0-9 in the Big Ten, failing to win a conference game for the first time since 2011. Purdue finishes the season 8-4 overall, 6-3 in the Big Ten and is en route to a bowl appearance.

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Here are three reasons why it happened.

The IU offense fizzled after the first drive

Just as it did against Minnesota the previous week, Indiana began Saturday's game with a sharp opening drive even though it was using a different quarterback. After using freshman Donaven McCulley's legs last week, the Hoosiers mostly rode walk-on Grant Gremel's arm this week before allowing McCulley to punch it in from 2 yards out for the touchdown. Gremel completed six of his eight passes on the drive for 55 yards as part of an 11-play, 75-yard touchdown march.

However, just as was the case in Indiana's 35-14 loss to Minnesota, the Hoosiers failed to turn one good drive into more and found offensive success nearly impossible to come by after that. The Hoosiers followed the touchdown with back-to-back three-and-outs. They picked up a first down on the first play of their fourth possession on an 18-yard run by running back Davion Ervin-Poindexter, but then had to punt thanks in large part due to a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Ervin-Poindexter. The Hoosiers closed the first half with an 11-play, 45-yard drive, but that ended with a missed field goal by kicker Charles Campbell.

The second half didn't start much better as the Hoosiers went three-and-out on the first possession, then punted after gaining 19 yards on five plays on the second possession. By the time the Hoosiers got the ball back after that drive they were down 31-7 and had dug too deep of a hole to get out of. They punted seven times and saw another drive end in an interception, reaching Purdue territory just once in the second half and failing to get past the Boilermakers 40-yard line.

Aidan O'Connell stayed sharp

The former walk-on added another chapter to an excellent fifth year at Purdue with an extremely efficient outing completing 26 of 31 passes for 278 yards and four touchdowns.

The Hoosiers, of course, knew what Purdue was going to do, but couldn't stop it. The Boilermakers spread them out with intermediate route after intermediate route and O'Connell spread the ball around with eight receivers catching his 26 completions. Biletnikoff Award finalist David Bell caught six passes for 79 yards including some critical ones to extend drives and a late touchdown, and fellow All-Big Ten candidate Milton Wright caught six passes for 53 yards but O'Connell took advantage of other weapons. Wide receiver Jackson Anthrop and T.J. Sheffield each caught touchdown passes as did tight end Paul Piferi.

The Boilermakers scored touchdowns on each of their first four second-half drives and finished with 447 yards of total offense.

Poorly-timed penalties

Considering the position it was in, Indiana didn't have a lot of margin for mistakes, but the Hoosiers made them at some of the most inopportune times.

Purdue scored its first touchdown in part because of an IU penalty. On 4th and 1 from the Indiana 4, Purdue called a halfback pass and the Hoosiers read it well forcing wide receiver Jackson Anthrop to throw the ball out of the back of the end zone in the vicinity of tight end Payne Durham. However, cornerback Jaylin Williams, who had the play covered up, bumped into Durham at the worst possible time and was called for pass interference. Purdue scored two plays later on a 1-yard touchdown run by Zander Horvath.

In the second quarter, Williams appeared to have an interception return for a touchdown, jumping a pass from O'Connell and taking it back more than 60 yards to the end zone. However, safety Raheem Layne was called for defensive pass interference on the play and tight end Paul Piferi scored on a 24-yard touchdown throw on the next play.

The Hoosiers committed eight penalties for 67 yards, and considering they gained just 205 yards of total offense, that was enough to cause a problem.

PURDUE 44, INDIANA 7

Indiana 7 0 0 0 — 7

Purdue 7 10 14 13 — 44

Scoring summary

Pur — Zander Horvath 1 run (Mitchell Fineran kick)

Ind — Donaven McCulley 2 run (Charles Campbell kick)

Pur — Paul Piferi 18 pass from Aidan O’Connell (Fineran kick)

Pur — Fineran FG 32

Pur — Jackson Anthrop 21 pass from O’Connell (Fineran kick)

Pur — T.J. Sheffield 5 pass from O’Connell (Fineran kick)

Pur — David Bell 20 run pass from O’Connell (kick blocked)

Pur — Dylan Downing 33 run (Fineran kick)

Rushing — Indiana: Davion Ervin-Poindexter 8-48, Charlie Spegal 9-37, David Holloman 4-14, Chris Childers 3-5, McCulley 1-2, Grant Gremel 7-(minus-48); Purdue: Horvath 15-49, King Doerue 4-49, Downing 3-39, Milton Wright 1-18, Austin Burton 1-7, Jack Plummer 1-4, O’Connell 3-1.

Passing — Indiana: Gremel 18-30-1 147; Purdue: O’Connell 26-31-0 278, Plummer 1-1-0 2, Burton 0-1-0 0.

Receiving — Indiana: Peyton Hendershot 6-51, Miles Marshall 3-42, A.J. Barner 4-29, Ty Fryfogle 2-19, Javon Swinton 2-8, Ervin-Poindexter 1-(minus-2); Purdue: Bell 6-70, Anthrop 4-63, Wright 6-53, Sheffield 3-31, Piferi 1-24, Horvath 4-19, Doerue 1-8, Downing 1-2, Garrett Miller 1-1.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: IU football: 3 reasons Purdue dominated Hoosiers in Old Oaken Bucket