Purdue retains bucket with 56-35 win over Indiana
By CLIFF BRUNT
ISL Editor
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — After all the ups and downs, Purdue is bowl-bound.
Akeem Shavers scored three touchdowns during a furious five-minute stretch in the fourth quarter to help the Boilermakers pull away for a 56-35 win over Indiana on Saturday and retain the Old Oaken Bucket.
“It always feels good,” Purdue defensive tackle Kawann Short said. “Winning the Old Oaken Bucket, whether we were bowl eligible or not, is a tradition that we need to keep and it needs to stay in West Lafayette. The bowl game tops it all off and is the icing on the cake.”
Shavers finished with 126 yards rushing and 99 yards receiving. He would have done more damage, but his 71-yard touchdown run on the third play from scrimmage was called back because of a hold.
Now, the Boilermakers have extended their season.
“It’s what we’ve been working for all year,” Shavers said. “We had that rough spot in the middle of the season and we felt if we got back to being bowl eligible it was still a successful season.”
Robert Marve threw for career highs of 348 yards and four touchdowns, yet his best play might have come on the interception he threw. His pass was tipped several times before being intercepted by Greg Heban and returned 70 yards. Marve, who has had three torn ACLs, raced all the way down the field to make the tackle and one of the great plays of the college football season.
The win caps an up-and-down season that has put coach Danny Hope’s status in jeopardy. The Boilermakers were expected to contend for the Big Ten Leaders Division title, but they lost their first five conference games, four by blowout. Athletic director Morgan Burke issued a statement earlier in the season saying he wasn’t happy with the team’s performance. Purdue rallied and won its final three games with Marve playing quarterback, though he led the team through the weaker part of the conference slate.
In a way, though, Hope might have lost well before Saturday’s kickoff. The crowd was barely over 40,000 for a rivalry game with a bowl bid on the line.
Still, the game was one the Boilermakers couldn’t afford to lose, whether Hope returns or not. Indiana coach Kevin Wilson is starting to build something in Bloomington, and a win would have elevated the perception of his program and severely hurt Purdue going forward.
“We played a solid game and the guys played good, but when you turn the ball four times you’re not going to win the game,” Wilson said. “It’s sad for the seniors, but we hope to go into the off season and work on the guys coming back.”
Stephen Houston ran for a career-high 158 yards and caught 12 passes for 95 yards for Indiana.
Cameron Coffman matched Marve with 348 yards passing, but he threw three interceptions. For all the hype IU generated, the Hoosiers closed the season with three losses, each by at least 21 points.
“It’s disappointing,” Coffman said. “We didn’t win as much as we would have liked, but we learned a lot. We have a lot of potential. We’ll relay this into the offseason and come out next season.”
The scoring started early on Saturday. Houston’s 51-yard touchdown run gave the Hoosiers a 7-0 lead with 12:04 left in the first quarter, but Purdue dominated for a long stretch after that.
Brandon Cottom’s 14-yard run with 7:05 left in the first quarter tied the score, and Marve’s 8-yard touchdown pass to Antavian Edison gave the Boilermakers a 14-7 lead.
Purdue outgained Indiana 156 yards to 73 in the first quarter and ran 24 plays to IU’s nine.
The Hoosiers controlled the second quarter. Houston scored on touchdown runs of 8 and 1 yards to give Indiana a 21-14 lead.
The Boilermakers stepped up to start the second half. First, they forced a three-and-out. Then Marve found O.J. Ross for a 19-yard touchdown pass. Ross made several impressive moves on his way to the end zone.
On IU’s next possession, Frankie Williams caught an overthrown pass by Coffman near the goal line and returned the ball to the Purdue 41. On the first play, Marve found Crosby Wright, the guilty party on the hold that erased Shavers’ long run, open in the middle of the field. Wright carried tacklers for 15 yards down to the 1-yard line. Rob Henry scored to put the Boilermakers up 28-21.
After Will Lucas recovered a fumble by D’Angelo Roberts, Gary Bush caught a 25-yard touchdown pass from Henry to push Purdue’s lead to 35-21.
Coffman’s sneak for a 1-yard touchdown cut Purdue’s lead to 35-28, and his 6-yard touchdown pass to Cody Latimer with 12:14 left tied the score.
It was all Purdue from there.
Marve found Shavers for a 73-yard touchdown. He lobbed the ball over the defense into the flat, then Shavers rumbled about 50 yards before putting a punishing stiff arm on Mark Murphy, then running the rest of the way to the end zone with 10:40 remaining.
After Purdue’s Max Charlot intercepted Coffman on the first play of IU’s next possession, Marve found Shavers again, this time for 26 yards, to make it 49-35 with 7:55 to play.
Indiana had one last shot to make it a game and went for it on a fourth-and-4 from its 47, but Antoine Lewis intercepted the ball and returned it to the Indiana 4-yard line. The Boilermakers closed the scoring when Shavers scored again from one yard out with 6:14 to play. That’s three touchdowns for Shavers in 4:26.
“It felt great, but I couldn’t have done it without the line, the receivers and the quarterbacks,” Shavers said. “It was a big team effort, and my success came from everyone around me.”
Indiana didn’t know what hit it.
“When it came down to it, we had it at 35-35,” Heban said. “We thought we had the momentum. We talked about finishing games at practice, but we couldn’t finish it like we wanted to today.”
