Coming into this week’s game at Purdue, the Minnesota Golden Gophers were riding high following a huge win at Michigan last week. However, the Boilermakers had other plans for the night.

Entering the game 2-3, the Boilermakers were looking at a season that could easily have them 4-1 had a few prior games gone differently at the end, and the Golden Gophers were coming off of a huge last-minute win at Michigan last week, so both teams were looking to make a statement that they’re the real deal in the Big Ten.

Enter the Ross-Ade Stadium home field advantage and the Boilermakers dominated Minnesota, putting on a defensive clinic.

The Golden Gophers were held to just 10 first downs, 27 rushing yards and forced 77 yards in Minnesota penalties while allowing the Gophers to have the ball for 15 minutes less than the Boilermakers.

Purdue also forced two Minnesota turnovers- one of which was a fumbled punt return that gave the Boilermakers the ball deep inside the redzone and led to a quick Fame Ijeboi 1-yard run for his third TD of the game.

Meanwhile, the Boilermaker offense was on fire with 464 total yards of offense and over 37 minutes of possession time, which was almost flawless in execution and made the Golden Gophers look flat, slow and unorganized.

Many of the Minnesota penalties were unnecessary with numerous late hits, facemasks and physical flags that exposed their frustration, which Purdue took full advantage of. This wasn’t long after a deep-field pass interference penalty that also gave Purdue possession in the redzone.

With the win, the Boilermakers move to .500 at 3-3 and 2-1 in Conference play, which puts them in the middle of a four-way tie for 5^th the Big Ten and just one game behind USC for 4th place.

If the season were to end today, the Boilermakers have already far-exceeded expectations and should be looked at as a threat to almost any team in the Big Ten, as they head into next Friday night’s game against Washington, who are winless in the Big Ten and in a multi-team tie for last place in the Conference.

-Reggie Edwards