Iowa football: Purdue wants to strike early with big plays

In the past two seasons, Purdue has put together a blueprint for beating the Iowa football team. They’ll try to deploy the strategy yet again Saturday.

Losing to Purdue is frustrating. In the years since Hayden Fry joined the Iowa football program and created a culture that is still strong today, Purdue has been mostly inept at beating the Hawks, except for the last two seasons.

Under Jeff Brohm, Purdue is undefeated against the Iowa football team, and where teams like Michigan and Penn State just use their superior defensive line to dominate the interior offensive line of Iowa, Purdue deploys a different strategy.

They want to strike early and often with big plays.

Which they’ve been successful in the last two years in doing.

Brohm had this to say regarding why he has been successful against the Hawks:

"This past year at home, we found a way to score early, which is important against them because they want to control the football and they want to run the clock. We got a lead early, which helps."

He went on to say a bit more about why this is important.

"You know, that is the key against Iowa. You’re going to have to find a way to get a lead and make them play a little bit different brand than they want to, because when they can play Iowa Football, they have a good chance of winning."

So there we have it.

And honestly, he’s not wrong. Getting an early lead is always a huge key for the Iowa football team because they like to control the clock with the run game and rely on a stout defense to shut down opposing team’s offenses, especially as they become one dimensional depending on game flow.

This year, though, it might not be so easy for the Boilermakers. Their starting quarterback is out for the season, and they will be missing All-American wide receiver Rondale Moore.

Instead, they will be relying on redshirt freshman Jake Plummer, true freshman wide receiver David Bell, and potential All-Big Ten tight end Brycen Hopkins to stretch the field.

It’s important to remember, though, that last year it wasn’t Moore that burnt the Iowa football team.

It was little known Terry Wright who caught 6 passes for 146 yards and 3 touchdowns as he was going against true freshman Riley Moss.

This year, hopefully, it’s a different story. Purdue’s rushing attack has been dismal at best, and the Iowa football team’s secondary is finally mostly healthy which means we are likely to see a much heavier deployment of a 4-2-5, which should be able to slow down (or just stop outright) Purdue’s offense.