The No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes will take its undefeated 8-0 record (including 5-0 in the Big Ten) to West Lafayette to face off with the Purdue Boilermakers (2-7, 0-6) at 1 p.m. ET on Big Ten Network.
Here
are five things to know about Purdue this season.
Barry Odom is a first-year head coach
Purdue hired well-respected head coach Barry Odom this season, and he has already made progress in just year one.
He was the head coach at UNLV from 2023 to 2024 and at Missouri from 2016 to 2019. Odom played college football at Missouri from 1996 to 1999 and became a coach there in 2005.
He was also the DC at Arkansas, and at UNLV, he led the Rebels to back-to-back Mountain West Conference championship games, their first championship games in school history.
Devin Mockobee is out for the season
Purdue’s best weapon recently has been senior running back Devin Mockobee. However, he suffered a season and career-ending injury against Rutgers two weeks ago and did not play last week against Michigan.
Mockobee finishes his career as the fourth-leading rusher in Boilermaker history with 2,987 yards. Mockobee also ranks in the school’s top 10 in carries with 630 and career 100-yard games with nine. This season, he had 125 carries for 521 yards, four touchdowns, and averaged 4.2 yards per carry. Malachi Thomas and Antonio Harris will now split the carries in the backfield.
Is this the Max Klare revenge game?
This is really just a saying, because I don’t think there is any bad blood between Klare and Purdue, but the Ohio State tight end did spend his first three seasons at Purdue, where he racked up 73 catches for 881 yards and four touchdowns, most of those coming in his breakout junior season.
I expect Klare to find the endzone on Saturday for the second time this season.
The Boilermakers give up a lot of yards and points
For the season, Purdue is second-worst in the Big Ten in opponent yards per game, giving up 375.3 per game, and is fourth-worst in the Big Ten in opponent points per game at 27.8. They also give up the second-most passing yards per game in the conference and the sixth-worst in rushing yards allowed.
Enter Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate, and Max Klare.
Orville Redenbacher went to Purdue
The Popcorn King attended Purdue University, where he was extremely accomplished. He joined the agriculture-oriented Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, played the tuba in the Purdue All-American Marching Band, joined the Purdue University track team, and worked at the Purdue Exponent. He graduated in 1928 with a degree in agronomy.
