Penn State's October nightmare came to an end, appropriately enough, on Halloween. After four straight losses since the start of Big Ten play, Penn State bounced back into the win column with a dominant performance at home against Purdue in Week 9. Penn State's 31-17 victory over the Boilermakers
was a little more one-sided than even that final score might indicate, but Penn State will take it any way it can after the past month.A breakdown of the final box score shows just how lopsided this game was from start to finish as Penn State slowly cooked Purdue on both sides of the football.
Here are some key stats from Penn State's Week 9 victory over Purdue.
Cam Wallace: 135 rushing yards, 22 attempts, 1 TD
Cam Wallace had a career day for the Nittany Lions. His 135 rushing yards was a career-high
and would be good enough on its own to be the fourth-best team rushing performance by Penn State this season.
Penn State: 269 rushing yards, 3 rushing TD
On top of the big day from Cam Wallace, Penn State got a solid outing from Carson Hansen and Rococ Becht running the football. Hansen rushed for 96 yards and Becht added 27 yards. The three players each scored one rushing TD in the game as Penn State rushed for the second-most yards it has seen in a single game this season. Penn State had gone three straight games rushing for no more than 68 yards in a game before this weekend against Purdue.
Purdue: 175 yards of total offense
Penn State's defense came to play against a Purdue offense that has been a bit upa nd down this season. The 175 yards of total offense allowed is the third-fewest yards allowed in a game this season by Penn State. Purdue is the first Big Ten team to fail to accumulate at least 300 yards of offense against Penn State this season. Purdue came into the weekend averaging 409.1 yards of total offense per game. This is the lowest total offensive output for Purdue this season, beating the previous low of 218 yards against Notre Dame in late September.
Penn State dominates time of possession
Penn State had a game plan to control the clock, and it worked to near perfection. Penn State held the football for 43:27 of game time, a complement to the offense for working sustained drives and the defense for making short work before getting off the field.
Penn State going 5-of-13 on third down and 3-of-3 on fourth down helped on the offensive side, and the defense holding Purdue to just 2-of-11 on third down and 1-of-2 on fourth down helped make this happen.
Penn State perfect in the red zone, Purdue never saw the red zone
Purdue had zero red zone trips in the game. Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, Penn State was perfect with its red zone trips. Penn State scored four touchdowns on four red zone trips thanks to three short rushing touchdowns and a short touchdown pass from Rocco Becht to Andrew Rappleyea.
Potentially costly penalties for Penn State
They did not come back to haunt Penn State in this game, but Matt Campbell will not be pleased with some of the penalties his players took, including a few personal foul penalties to help Purdue extend a couple of drives. Penn State was flagged 6 times for 65 yards, but it did not do any real damage this week.
This article originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire: Key stats from Penn State's Week 9 win over Purdue
