3 big areas where the Illinois football team can attack Purdue

3. Get the Boilermakers off the field early

It isn’t a secret that Purdue has a below-average team this season. The Boilermakers are not only struggling on the field, but they have already fired their offensive coordinator.

Purdue has been one of the worst teams in college football. Their offense has really struggled, as they are sub-100 in both run and pass offense in 2024.

With the Boilermakers not being able to move the ball very well, this has translated into short drives. This season, Purdue has failed to convert third downs at a high rate. I think Illinois can really expose these shortcomings on Saturday.

For the season, Purdue is only converting 23.40% of third downs. That is an insanely bad number. That means they convert just less than one third down for every four attempts. I don’t know if I have ever seen that low of a number from a Big Ten program. They rank No. 130 out of 134 programs in the FBS.

Let’s give Illinois fans a reference point. In 2017, the Illini averaged 15.4 points per game, which was awful. Those teams couldn’t move the football. That season, Illinois was still able to convert third downs at a clip of 33.53%.

Purdue is a bad team in 2024, but let’s not sleep on them. Illinois can’t look ahead at future opponents. With that being said, these three areas are where I think we can make the most ground on Saturday.