Dispelling a Myth: Purdue's Front Seven

I think (hope) we see more of the Eastern Michigan version. Notre Dame's offense is a major work in progress, as we witnessed first hand. I'm not saying our offense is a world beater by any means, but when Denard and Fitz get going, it is tough to stop them. I think Notre Dame's defensive front seven is pretty legit, but I still question Purdue's.

We shall see what happens Saturday, but remember we have had the bye week to work on the small things. We will be ready to go and I think we beat the spread pretty easily.

I went to the NCAA Statistics Archive for a few other tidbits as I found the portion about run defense intriguing in particular.

In their 4 games, teams have attempted 128 carries for 426 net yards, or 3.33 yards per carry. In the same number of games, the teams who have played us carried the ball 180 times for 728 net yards, or 4.04 yards per carry. Of course, we've had the national champions and a triple-option team in there, so I hope our ability to stop ND (all of 94 rushing yards in 31 carries) is what we actually are, as that would mean we're significantly better than Purdue in this regard.

As for passing defense, ours is actually ranked 9th nationally right now, whereas Purdue sits at 81 for the time being. I feel comfortable with that in particular.

I like this. What about their secondary? Are they any good? If their front 7 is average and their secondary has a bad day, we should be able to move the ball well on the ground and through the air.

It's probably hard to tell much about their secondary since they've played three shit teams, and a good team who can't throw.

Wow. Nothing you posted makes me feel any better or agree with your assertion that Purdue's front 7 is some kind of "myth".

The ND numbers against Purdue were also slanted by them missing RB Cierre Wood for that game, and QB Golson scrambling for negative yards repeatedly in his second start. The offense was pretty one dimensional that day, they even pulled Golson to secure the last second win at home.

Keep in mind that for the ND/Purdue game, ND was without Cierre Wood.  Theo Riddick averaged 3.5 yards a carry, so not good, but not as stiffiling as the less than 2 yards of team stats.  ND had -40 yards in sacks.  Now that's a whole different story if we want to talk about it, but sheds some light on the rushing stats.  I would like to actually see the game film; I did not get a chance to watch that game.

I feel like this is diary material. Well done.

Personally, I think we'll be alright. We handled ND's dline pretty well, and I don't think Purdue has enough athletes to blitz like ND did and see much success with it.

I think Purdue will give us trouble. We are on the road and have not played a consistent game from start to finish. I hope we can show some consistency and not turn the ball over, we do that and we can win. If we are throwing pick 6's to Allen and Johnson we are in trouble.

are a function of two things (without having seen the game)

1. Having Kawaan Short as your DT
2. And ND seeming to have a terrible interior OL.

I mean, ND's line couldn't single-block Big Will or QWash whereas no one else seems to really have that issue. Purdue's front 7 seems good..but not great

This is a huge game, i think we will be fine but we cant afford to lose this game. I think we stop short at the point of attack we will be just fine, i know easier said then done.

The other nice thing about Purdue is that their offense is pretty bad. ND's defense, who couldn't stop us at all unless we were throwing them the ball or putting it on the turf, shut down Purdue pretty well. Purdue scored 17 points, but 7 of those were from an ND turnover at their own 15. They had 288 yards of total offense on 71 plays for about 4 yards per play, but most of that production was from Marve, there was a steep drop off when TerBush came in.

We should keep Purdue to single digits.

Thank you for the bump to a diary and adding the UFR from last year.  Reading the UFR has spurned the following thoughts

1. We miss you David Molk
2. Koger shutting down the DE = Kwiatkowski performance vesus ND not a fluke = good times
3. We managed to protect Denard well
4. RPS was good, so I'm hoping that Borges uses the edge as well as he did last year

I think the Purdue defense has a few elite parts and a few below average parts.  I believe their DT's (Short and Gaston) are the best interior DL in the Big Ten, while their ends are only average.  I also believe they have the best CB tandem in the Big Ten in Johnson & Allen, while their safties are average, or maybe even slightly below average.  The weakest group on the Purdue defense is definitely their LB's.  All 3 LB's are small and somewhat lacking in terms of athleticism.  Similar to last year, UM will most likely struggle running the ball up the middle, but will be able to reach the edge with relative ease. 

Thanks for posting.

The lbs do not scare me

"So which version will show up Saturday?"

Likely both will.  As others have noted, Purdue does seem to have two top notch DTs.  However, if we can sustain long drives on offense (which I don't see why they shouldn't be able to), they'll need to rotate backup DTs in more often.  There appears to be a rather significant drop off in experience and skill with their backups.