What Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm said about Penn State ahead of Thursday’s season opener
The last time Purdue took on Penn State it wasn’t pretty. The Nittany Lions, led by then-first year starting quarterback Sean Clifford, trounced the Boilermakers 35-7 in Beaver Stadium to move to 5-0.
Fast forward three years and, while some things have changed drastically, some key factors will remain the same. Clifford will take the field as a fourth-year starting quarterback for Penn State’s Thursday night matchup with Purdue and across from him will be a quarterback that got his first game action that October day in 2019 — Aidan O’Connell.
Both teams will be led by the same head coaches and on Monday morning, Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm said his team was simply outmatched three years ago when it faced Penn State and head coach James Franklin.
“We’ve looked back on it a lot because it wasn’t a good showing for us,” Brohm said. “We got beat up front quite a bit. They were really fast. They were physical. It’s hard for us to get open as much. They have veteran guys in the secondary, and they’re athletic. ... I think offensively they were able to do whatever they wanted. Ran the ball on us, threw the ball on us, ran nakeds, threw it to the tight end, utilized the running back, the quarterback run game.”
Fast forward to the current matchup and it looks much closer. The Nittany Lions are 11-11 over the last two seasons and have struggled to find consistency on offense.
Purdue, meanwhile, continues to produce one of the best passing offenses in all of college football under Brohm’s stewardship and has a continually improving defense.
Despite those improvements, the Boilermakers’ head coach knows his team will have a challenge ahead in its season opener.
“We’ve worked hard to get prepared for it, but we’re going to have to play well, and we’re going to have to see how we match up against a really good football team that has quite a bit of experience at certain positions,” Brohm said. “The physicality of it, the speed of it, we’ll just see right away where we’re at after Game 1.”
Here’s everything else Brohm said about the game and the Nittany Lions.
Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm
On the 2019 game
We’ve looked back on it a lot because it wasn’t a good showing for us. We got beat up front quite a bit. They were really fast. They were physical. It’s hard for us to get open as much. They have veteran guys in the secondary, and they’re athletic.
Like I said, even when you look at the Arkansas game where they lost in the bowl game, Arkansas didn’t throw the ball on them. That didn’t happen. The quarterback had to run around and make plays, which, that’s not our strength right now. So we have to play to our strength. But that’s their strength as well.
I think offensively they were able to do whatever they wanted. Ran the ball on us, threw the ball on us, ran nakeds, threw it to the tight end, utilized the running back, the quarterback run game.
So it’s a tough matchup. We’ve worked hard to get prepared for it, but we’re going to have to play well, and we’re going to have to see how we match up against a really good football team that has quite a bit of experience at certain positions. The physicality of it, the speed of it, we’ll just see right away where we’re at after Game 1.
On Sean Clifford
I think he’ll be in the second year in this offensive system, which will help him be more comfortable. He’s played a lot of football. He can run around and make plays. He can distribute the ball to his play makers. He understands what the team is built on. They don’t want to turn it over. They want to create a few big plays in the play action game, but other than that, they want to utilize the tight ends and running backs and even his ability to run the football.
That’s where you have to account for him and his experience level. We have to figure out a way to give him some things he hasn’t seen before. We have to figure out a way to get after the quarterback more than quarterbacks like to be hit. We have to figure out a way to disguise some things, but we’ve got to stop the run, and we’ve got to make sure that we stop the quarterback run as well or they will score a lot of points.
On Manny Diaz
Well, Coach Diaz has a lot of experience. He’s coached a lot of football at a lot of different conferences. So we’ve watched, definitely, a ton of Miami film and then some at Penn State, but at the same time, I’m sure it’s going to be Coach Diaz’s defense.
It’s an aggressive style defense. They’re going to be more attacking. They’re going to guard things tighter. They’re going to, on third down, get creative in blitzes and disguising things and come after the quarterback. They’re going to utilize the athletes. They’re going to move with the front, which is always tough on an offense when things are moving and going in different directions.
So that’s what you have to prepare for. We’ve looked at it. We’ve studied it, but at the same time, getting it done in the speed of the game is going to be the test.
I think it definitely provides an element of he will have more creativity and do more things that we’ll have to prepare for.
