Scouting Report: Purdue Boilermakers

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The first year of Barry Odom’s tenure at the helm at Purdue was pretty much the exact opposite of what Dickert pulled off at Wake Forest—after starting the season 2-0 with wins over Ball State and Southern Illinois, the Boilermakers lost their final 10 games of the season, finishing the year with a 53 point loss to in-state rival and eventual national champion Indiana. That 2-10 record may be a little deceptive, as Purdue had the 4th toughest schedule in the nation last season—5 of their opponents were ranked, including #1 Ohio State and #2 Indiana, 7 of their opponents finished the season with 9 wins or more, and 9 of their opponents made the postseason. With just 1 game played so far this season against FCS Indiana State, a team that hasn’t had a winning season since 2018, I have a feeling we really won’t know how much Purdue has improved until Saturday.

With just 1 game against a bad FCS team, none of these statistics or ranks are probably very representative of the Boilermaker’s strength on offense. Purdue finished the 2025 season 123rd in scoring with under 19 points per game and 102nd in total offense with 342 yards per game—I’m sure they will improve upon that somewhat this season, but I doubt they will continue putting up 500 yards and 44 points per game (7 of those points came from a defensive TD). A lot of that improvement is going to depend on how well the Boilermakers hit on their prospects from the transfer portal, because outside of junior QB Ryan Browne, who completed 59% of his passes for 2,100 yards, 9 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions last season, a lot of the offense is completely new. Purdue lost 4 of their top 5 receivers, 2 of their top 3 rushers, and 2 starters on the offensive line from last season. Speaking of Browne, there is a chance he could have some added motivation in this one—after transferring from Purdue to UNC in December of 2024, he transferred right back to Purdue after spring practice due to the signing of Gio Lopez (he entered his name in the portal 1 day before Lopez was announced).

In the ground game, the Boilermakers added sophomore transfer Fame Ijeboi from Minnesota and sophomore Jerrick Gibson from Texas. Ijeboi was the main focus at running back in the first game against Indiana State, running the ball 11 times for 87 yards and a touchdown. He also added 2 catches for 30 yards.

The way Ijeboi patiently waits for a hole to develop at the line of scrimmage and then puts his foot in the ground and takes off reminds me a lot of how guys like Demond Claiborne and Kenneth Walker used to run back in the slow mesh offense. Wake’s biggest runs back then always occurred when the defense lost contain and allowed those guys to bounce to the outside and take off, so the Deacs will need to make sure they don’t get over zealous and allow Ijeboi to get on the perimeter.

At receiver, Purdue brought in Xavier Townsend from Iowa State and Asaad Waseem from FAU. The pair combined for half of Purdue’s 27 receptions in the season opener against Indiana State with 6 and 7 catches respectively—no other player caught more than 2 passes.

Like with Wake’s win over Akron, it can be difficult to accurately gauge the strength of the offense given the level of talent on the defense, but—if the first game is any indication—most of the Purdue passes on Saturday will be going to Townsend or Waseem.

The Boilermakers ended up allowing Indiana State to score 19 points, but it was pretty similar to the Wake-Akron game. Purdue kept the Sycamores out of the endzone until the 4th quarter, and they were up 44-6 before 2 late touchdowns made the score look a little better than it was. Again, due to the talent disparity between the two teams, there’s really not much to take away from a blowout win over Indiana State. The Boilermakers gave up almost 32 points and 424 yards of offense per game on defense last season, but they have a new defensive coordinator this season in Kevin Kane, who returns to the program after a season in Minnesota.

Like the offense, a lot of the defense is going to be pretty new. The Boilermakers lost 6 of their top 7 tacklers from a season ago, including All Big-10 LB Mani Powell (110 tackles, 12 TFL, 5 sacks), All Big-10 Honorable Mention DB Tahj Ra-El (110 tackles, 2.5 TFL, 5 PD), and DL CJ Nunnally IV (10.5 TFL, 5 sacks). The transfer portal should help there as well—Utah transfer Donovan Saunders, Michigan transfer Jaden Mangham, and FIU transfer Mister Clark were excellent in the secondary against Indiana State. Saunders finished with 3 tackles and a pick-6, Mangham was 2nd on the team with 4 tackles, and Clark had a team high 5 tackles, 2 TFL, and 1 sack.

Purdue was one of the worst teams in the nation last season in forcing turnovers (121st), coming away just 4 interceptions and 5 fumbles, so adding players who can potentially generate more takeaways could really help the Boilermakers on the defensive side this season.

The Purdue defense has given up over 30 points per game for 3 straight seasons—2 of those seasons were under returning DC Kevin Kane. Despite the Boilermakers giving up just 66 rushing yards and 284 total yards against Indiana State, I expect Wake Forest to have no issues moving the ball and scoring against the Purdue defense. This will be the first real test for Gio Lopez and the Wake Forest offense, so Saturday’s game will be a much better measuring stick of where the offense stands against power 4 caliber players.

Based on the first games of the season and last year, I am pretty confident that Wake Forest is the better team heading into this one. As long as the Deacs avoid turning the ball over a bunch of times or getting a ton of stupid penalties, I think they should return home 2-0.

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