Just a few seasons ago Purdue metric football was in roughly the same boat as Purdue American football. After reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2021 and finishing second in the conference behind All-American Sarah Griffith the program fell on hard times. It went 6-24-5 over the next two seasons and a dismal 0-15-5 in Big Ten play. Richard Moodie was hired to rebuild the program and showed improvement the last two years. Purdue actually won a few games, but still finished under .500.
Then there was this season, which has been a tremendous surprise.
With pretty much no preseason expectations Purdue has been one of the most surprising teams in the country. They currently lead the nation in wins with a 16-2-3 record. The two losses were both by 2-1 scores to nationally ranked Ohio State and UCLA, costing them the regular season conference championship, but the 9-2-1 conference record is a new high water mark in league play for the program, which started in 1998.
After losing the conference opener in Los Angeles to UCLA Purdue has ripped off an impressive 11-1-2 record that included a 2-1 win over then No. 2 ranked Michigan State 2-1, No. 21 Michigan 6-5, and No. 21 Penn State 2-1 in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament last week. That victory was just the second in program history over the Nittany Lions.
Purdue then edged Wisconsin 4-3 on penalty kicks after a 2-2 draw in the semifinals to set up tomorrow’s rematch with Michigan State for the conference tournament title. As the highest remaining seed the match will be hosted at Folk Field and is already a sellout.
This is easily the best season Purdue has had since 2007, when it went 20-2-3, 8-1-1 in Big Ten play, knocked off No. 1 ranked Portland when they had Megan Rapinoe, and won the Big Ten Tournament. That team was ranked as high as No. 4 in the country before a heartbreaking second round home loss to Indiana on penalty kicks (after destroying the Hoosiers 7-0 a few weeks earlier).
This year’s team is led by Jaiden Anderson, the junior forward that leads the Big Ten with 19 goals in 21 games. She is a first year transfer for the Boilers after playing two seasons at USC. She also has a team high seven assists, including one on Irene Campo’s game-winner in overtime against Penn State last week. Campo has 12 goals and 6 assists in her own right, giving the Boilers a powerful duo at the top of the offense.
Defensively Purdue has been stout with only 20 goals surrendered across 21 games, and five of those came in the wild 6-5 shootout win over Michigan. Krystina Wolf has handled most of the goalkeeping duties with an 11-1-1 record in 13 starts, but Grace Miller has acquitted herself well with a 5-1-2 record. Wolf has kept a clean sheet six times.
The championship game is a rematch of Purdue’s 2-1 win over the Spartans on October 11th. In that game Michigan State scored in just the second minute, but Emilia Deppe tied it 1-1 in the 8th minute and Ireone Campo’s penalty shot in the 47th minute proved to be the game-winner. Miller was in goal for that match and had six saves.
The good news is that Purdue is almost certainly in the NCAA Tournament win or lose. In the latest rankings the Boilers have climbed all the way to No. 13 and with a win over Michigan State they have a chance to host the first three rounds of the NCAAs. They will almost certainly host a first round matchup, and if they can reach a top 8 seed with another top 5 win over the Spartans they could be named a regional host for rounds 2 and 3.
The match kicks off tomorrow at 6pm ET and will be on Big Ten Network.
