How Jeff Brohm’s system is maximizing Purdue’s potential

The Jeff Brohm hire was an exciting one for Purdue. It’s tough being a fan of a team that struggles to compete in a major conference, and it’s even worse when your team doesn’t even middle about in an interesting or compelling way. That all changed when Brohm brought his exciting brand of offensive football to West Lafayette and immediately upgraded the team with a few key additions, but mostly just superior coaching.

Now in year two, the Boilermakers are sitting at 10th in the S&P+ offensive ratings, fresh off a 49-20 thrashing of the previously undefeated Buckeyes on primetime television.

Brohm didn’t inherit the biggest or most talented team in the country, but his time at Western Kentucky helped him develop several formulas for building a terrifying offense anyway.

One regard in which Brohm was positioned to have early success: Purdue already had some pro-style TEs on the roster. That said, starter Brycen Hopkins is much more of a receiving threat than a mauling blocker and checks in at “only” 6’5, 245.

On top of that, the entire Boilermaker OL checked into 2018 lighter than in 2017, from left to right weighing:

6’7, 290 — 6’4, 310 — 6’2, 300 — 6’1, 305 — 6’6, 300

It’s clear that their strategy is to field guys who can reliably get in front of DL and limit penetration by simply being in the way, using double teams (with inside zone) or the stretch of reach blocks (on outside zone) to create running lanes.

Here’s inside zone, run behind multiple double teams, with the OL focusing on limiting penetration and the RB responsible for finding a point along the wall:

They use pistol and under-center formations to keep defenses guessing about the direction of the zone blocking before the snap. With many spread offenses, the TE tells you where the ball will go, but Purdue intentionally avoid that, like on this stretch play with the TE sealing the backside:

Finally, the RBs aren’t terribly big either. Leading rusher D.J Knox is a bowling ball at 5’7, 210 pounds, excellent at finding creases behind zone blocking and running through tackles when defenders find him:

The upshot is that Purdue has a highly functional run game despite lacking freakishly large and athletic OL, strong blocking TEs, or a huge power back like you’d expect to find in a strong run front.

Having a working run game is essential because Brohm’s offense is heavy on misdirection, and there’s still no better way to achieve that than play action.

The Ohio State game gave the college football world a nice introduction to Rondale Moore, who had 12 receptions in this game that produced 170 yards and two scores, as well as a couple of rushes that yielded 24 more yards.

Moore is a little like Barry Sanders, in that he stands about 5’7 but squats 600 pounds and packs as much power and explosiveness as you could imagine into that frame. The play above is a shot off some blocking we detailed earlier, and it puts Ohio State in a bind. The Buckeyes are in their cover 4 scheme, with the weakside LB and boundary safety ostensibly bracketing the slot while the corner plays man coverage outside, but the play action sucks in the LB. Then Moore is running free in space against the safety ... not good.

Brohm’s last Western Kentucky offense in 2016 made similar hay with the 5’9, 185 Nicholas Norris, who had 1,540 yards from scrimmage.

All 2018, the Boilermakers have feasted on opponents who just don’t know what to do with Moore. Brohm has multiple tricks for getting him in space, where the WR becomes impossible.

First there’s the play action, but there’s also the sets where they line him up outside a flexed-out Hopkins:

This play is nearly automatic. They ran it all day long against Ohio State and Missouri, and there wasn’t much either could do about it. Normally you want to help the middle linebacker and send safety help to cover the TE on that quick-hitting slant across the QB’s face, but that leaves the nickel or sam LB in a 1-on-1 outside on Moore in the H spot.

Eventually Missouri caught on and dropped the safety down to stop the slant to Moore only to see Purdue QB David Blough fit the ball in for a first down anyway. Because Hopkins is a good receiver and a matchup problem at 6’5, Purdue is able to play with two slot receivers who usually need to be doubled. That’s a winning formula for passing downs.

Purdue will also run rub routes for Moore, which tend to make for easy short-yardage conversions. Watch as No. 12 has to sidestep just a little bit of traffic while pursuing Moore toward the end zone:

You don’t really want to be playing man coverage against a Brohm offense. He has too many route combos that create a rub and free up receivers to break out into open grass.

Then there are the times where Moore just makes it easy, and Brohm’s squad doesn’t have to execute anything particularly clever:

Yikes, that’s the kind of highlight reel that you see in New York.

Purdue follows a different formula on defense, featuring a fairly large and physical team that often plays base 4-3 personnel with star linebacker Markus Bailey out wide over the slot receiver. The name of the game on defense for the Boilermakers are zone blitzes that feature precise timing from Bailey or inside-backer Cornel Jones, allowing them to overload the weak spots inside.

This is a version of their favorite blitz:

They’ll slant a tackle across the guard’s face while sending a DB or outside LB into the gap vacated by that tackle. Typically the offense picks him up with the RB, but then Jones fires into the same space and cleans up.

Bailey and Jones have a combined 2.42 tackles for loss per game, and the name of the game for Purdue this year is killing drives with inside pressures combined with safe, three-deep coverages in the secondary. You don’t have to recruit prototypical bluechip defenders if you know how to teach players to stop big plays and to get a LB isolated on a RB on the blitz.

That’s as good a formula as you’ll find for winning football games in a place like West Lafayette.