Indiana football, Purdue, the Old Oaken Bucket and thieves of joy

Purdue had all the momentum it could possibly ask for.

The Boilermaker offense stood a mere five yards away from the opposing endzone and a chance to tie things up against Indiana, which had risen all the way up to No. 2 in the country and entered Ross-Ade Stadium with a chance to cap off an undefeated 12-0 season.

Upsets mean something here. These are the Spoilermakers, known as giant-killers throughout their history as a program. Few of the Big Ten’s most venerated programs can boast as much success against top-5 opponents as Purdue.

These Boilers, powered by a pair of explosive plays through the air and on the ground, were stopped just short of converting on their first three downs. Two yards stood between them and as good of a scoring opportunity as you can get on the gridiron here on fourth down. A score wasn’t necessary, just two measley yards to get four extra chances at the endzone to tie this up.

Indiana’s offense wasn’t looking like the dominant unit it’s shown itself to be, scoring just once in its first three possessions with water threatening to find its level. Now was the time for action.

With the weight of his program’s history at his back and an ascendant college football power in front of him, Purdue head coach Barry Odom… sent out the kicking unit.

It’s “good.” Indiana 7, Purdue 3.

Those three points would be the extent of the Boilermakers’ scoring. The Hoosiers would end up sending out the kicking unit themselves for PATs on the seven touchdowns they ended up scoring on top of that first. That call to kick a field goal was one of several Purdue opted for early on in Friday’s rivalry matchup.

Indiana’s meteoric rise to the top of the college football landscape has directly coincided with Purdue plummeting to the very bottom. Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers have outscored Ryan Walters and Barry Odom’s Boilers 122-3 across just two matchups.

Under Cignetti, Indiana has gone 23-2 in 2024 and 2025. Under Walters and Odom, Purdue has gone 3-21 in two years.

So why, with a chance to get a touchdown on the board, is Purdue opting to be conservative? Is there a belief that a war of attrition can be won against one of the sport’s most prolific offenses? Or is this an admission of defeat?

It’s worth briefly examining how each program got here.

Indiana was prepared for the changes that have come to remake the college football landscape. The Hoosiers’ athletic department put itself in position to give its athletes as good an opportunity as any others when it came to leveraging their name, image and likeness. Indiana’s alumni base is full of quite a few people with quite a lot of money who care quite a bit about the Hoosiers’ athletic success.

When the time came for a change in leadership for the football program, Indiana identified a proven winner and handed him the resources he needed to compete.

Like Indiana, Purdue’s NIL figures and budget aren’t readily available. We know enough to come to the conclusion that it’s not in a similar position to Indiana. When a proven winner, Jeff Brohm, left in 2022, Purdue bet on a young up-and-coming coordinator to bring some energy into the program. It’s not a terrible bet, there’s been several coordinators who’ve worked out as head coaches, namely Oregon’s Dan Lanning. The problem is that backfired, horribly.

While Indiana was building in 2024, Purdue was collapsing. Odom had to start over from scratch while Cignetti was reloading ahead of an even better season in 2025, becoming a top program instead of a one-hit wonder.

The gap between the two programs has perhaps never been as vast as it is right now.

Which, again, is why it’s disappointing that Odom repeatedly opted for the conservative play early. It’s gotta be irritating for Purdue fans and, in a weird way, it’s almost disappointing for Indiana. Why come out at all if you’re not going to play to score? That’s how football games are won, with touchdowns.

Playing spoiler is part of the beauty of these rivalry matchups. Purdue had a chance to put a permanent black mark on Indiana’s historic season a la Michigan at Ohio State last year. If the Boilers had dared to be great, maybe they could’ve scored a touchdown for the first time in two years.

Not even trying? Where’s the fun in that?

This isn’t to say Indiana fans don’t take pleasure in watching their suddenly-incredible football team demolish their in-state rival. There’s a bit more satisfaction when the opposing team is good, like at Oregon.

Or if the opposing team tries at all.

These matchups are less competitive than Indiana’s much-maligned early season non-conference slates. There’s nothing about the game to get excited about for either half. Indiana sleepwalks to a blowout while the Old Oaken Bucket goes nowhere near Purdue’s sideline. The Boilermakers shouldn’t be this bad and even if they are they should at least try to make something, anything happen. Their fanbase could use the joy, even if it ends up a fleeting moment.

Purdue, in its poor hiring and management, has stolen that joy from a fanbase that loyally looked on and invested as the black and gold titans to their knees on this very turf. The Boilers’ timid red-zone decision making serves as a microcosm of this theft.

Right now, this game is not a rivalry. It’s a tune-up ahead of the postseason. A glorified warm-up.

Given the history these two programs share, that’s a shame.