Purdue's offense bottoms out, just like its mascot

WEST LAFAYETTE – The omen was visible early.

As Purdue’s players entered Ross-Ade Stadium ahead of Saturday’s matchup against Iowa, the motorized Boilermaker Special – the official mascot – stalled.

And man was that a sign of things to come.

The Boilermaker Special sputtered for a couple of yards but then stopped. They tried a restart with the same results. A group of students from the Reamer Club came to the rescue and were later joined by stadium workers, all of whom pushed the locomotive to the sidelines and eventually into the area behind the north end zone.

Here’s the predictable zinger of the day from the 24-3 mauling the Hawkeyes delivered: The Boilermaker Special passed through the end zone more than Jeff Brohm’s offense.

QB strugglingPurdue quarterback Aidan O'Connell 'definitely not playing great football right now'

“It was a bad day for us. It starts with me. I didn’t have the team ready to play and we had guys that didn’t perform, and we got our butts kicked,” Brohm said.

This was the same end zone area where Purdue had its best chance to score a touchdown late in the first half, trailing 17-0 after Iowa had punched Brohm’s team in the mouth throughout the second quarter.

After Devin Mockobee rambled 15 yards, bringing the Boilermakers to the 2-yard line, Brohm dialed up a run-pass option on first down – which Aidan O’Connell opted to pass - and two more passing plays on second and third down, respectively.

The first two attempts were incomplete. On third down, O’Connell was sacked for a 15-yard loss, forcing Mitchell Fineran to attempt and make a 34-yard field goal to put Purdue on the scoreboard.

Now, this is important to remember. Even if Purdue scored a touchdown in that situation, the final result likely doesn’t change. But any momentum the Boilermakers were starting to gain was stripped away by scoring only three points, which is the lowest point total in Brohm’s nearly six seasons.

In the end, Purdue was fortunate to avoid a shutout after generating a season-low 255 yards and going 2 of 16 on third down.

On a blustery day with steady winds howling between 30-40 miles per hour and gusts reaching 50 miles per hour, throwing the ball on every down wasn’t the ideal strategy to deal with Iowa’s stingy defense.

Brohm even spent part of the first five minutes of his postgame press conference preaching a balanced attack in the challenging weather conditions, knowing running the ball was needed to avoid mistakes in the passing game.

And those mistakes came in the form of two O’Connell interceptions in the first half.

“It was a bad job by me, without question,” Brohm said of the first-and-goal situation. “One of them was a run-pass and I thought we were going to hand it off with Aidan choosing to throw the fade. I would’ve liked for (O’Connell) to hand off, but it was a run-pass, and he has the option. That’s my fault. We should’ve run the ball at that point, and I did not.”

Brohm is a pass-first play-caller and that philosophy has won the Boilermakers a lot of games. The running game experienced moderate success in the first half, but it wasn’t enough to convince Brohm to keep the ball on the ground in a crucial situation.

“Sometimes, there’s going to be more guys up there to stop the run. I should put in more blockers in a heavy set to run the ball,” Brohm said. “We had some runs here and there that helped us, and then didn’t convert on simple pass plays at times. When you have some not ideal conditions, you’ve got to keep the game close, and you’ve got be in it and we can’t turn it over.”

Again, the sequence doesn’t change the eventual outcome of what happened Saturday since the Hawkeyes were clearly the better team on both sides of the ball. It shows the continued small margin for error this team has, and one little hiccup has recently derailed Purdue and it can’t find its way back.

As for the final nail, it came on the second play of the third quarter when freshman running back Kaleb Johnson raced 75 yards for a touchdown, sending a wave of fans to the exits.

The worst offense in the Big Ten moved the ball with relative ease against a Purdue defense, which is running out of answers on how to stop anybody. Johnson finished with 200 yards and the Boilermakers face the Big Ten’s leading rusher next week at Illinois.

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“We gave up 200 yards to one running back. That’s not our best performance; it’s kind of embarrassing,” defensive tackle Lawrence Johnson said. “We take pride in stopping the run and we didn’t do that. Next week, we play another running back who’s capable of doing the same thing.”

While Purdue lost control of winning the Big Ten West on its own Saturday, it still isn’t out of the race, as impossible as it might seem right now. But the Boilermakers must beat the Fighting Illini and will need help to land in the top spot of the standings.

If things fall apart in Champaign, the next order of business is becoming bowl eligible. Purdue remains one win short and the last two games against Northwestern and Indiana aren’t gimmies, based on the fragile state of Brohm’s team right now.

Soul searching is likely the theme as the Boilermakers look to reverse this recent trend.

“I told them after the game, the score and film doesn’t lie – we’re getting our butts kicked,” Brohm said. “We’ve got to man up to it. From me, all the way down, the opinion of ourselves is too high. You’ve got to understand that there’s work to be done if you want to compete. Some of the better players have to do their part as well

“We can drown in our sorrows and tears, or we can man up and face adversity and figure a way to fix it and come back and compete the next game.”

As for the next game, keep the Boilermaker Special in the garage.

Mike Carmin covers Purdue sports for the Journal & Courier and USA Today Sports Network. Email mcarmin@gannett.com and follow on Twitter and Instagram @carmin_jc

Purdue (5-4, 3-3) at No. 13 Illinois (7-2, 4-2)

Saturday

Time: Noon

TV: ESPN2

Radio: WAZY (96.5)

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Iowa at Purdue football: Boilermaker Special Big Ten West title