Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/170640
f r o m e d i t o r b r i a n We hate Trust me:it you hate writing every bit as much as n e u b e r t reading it. "We just have to execute." Or something to that effect. It's the unavoidable roadblock to any line of questioning about bad offense, bad defense, bad anything, just meaty enough to say something, just nebulous enough to say nothing. Sure, questioners — keep in mind, we are questioners, not interrogators — can follow up all you want in any number of ways. But typically when dealing with athletes or coaches wary of pointing fingers or saying anything controversial — or as we'd call it, interesting — all roads come back to the ultimate noduh answer of "execution." Can't blame anyone here. It's just the way the game is played and the challenge for us outsiders of differentiating between what's said and what's real. The banalities of "execution" have been common the past nothing left to say few weeks as Purdue has opened the season in most inauspicious fashion, most recently in its daring escape from Indiana State. All you needed to see were the faces after that game, those of players who'd just won a game but were all too conscious of the highway pile-up they'd just walked away from unscathed to seem all that excited about it. It didn't have to be that way. If the Boilermakers, a middleof-the-pack Big Ten team of late but a Big Ten team nonetheless, would have been able to pick up a single yard on as many as seven different snaps against the FCS Sycamores, the remainder of the afternoon might have been smooth sailing. Yet Purdue's short-yardage offense gave the look of a bird flailing up against your front window time and again, bouncing off each and every time. The reason, we're told: Execution. Of course that's true. So too were the facts that In- diana State battled and presented Purdue with some schematic complications. But also there is just that simple reality about Purdue that we've pointed out time and again: The Boilermakers have talented players, just hardly enough of them, and a distinct shortage of physically advantaged ones. With the offense troubled as it is, Purdue has struggled to generate much of a running game — an absolute must if there ever was one — and suffers from an utter dearth of proven, seasoned skill-position threats to throw the ball to, tight end Gabe Holmes' injury now making things that much worse. The offensive line has struggled. People blame quarterback Rob Henry. I say get off his case. He knows he's not playing terribly well, but he's hardly this unit's greatest concern and casting a freshman onto the field under these conditions is a situation where, yes, things can get worse. That said, I reserve the right to hold a different opinion six weeks from today. Right now, though, Purdue's improvement on offense must start up front. Considering all that's been mentioned here, Notre Dame is scary. Purdue must enjoy these games with the Irish while it can because there's no guarantee it'll have them much longer, but there may not be much to enjoy Saturday unless there's a significant reversal of fortunes, a 180 of 1997-like proportion. Otherwise, we'll probably be talking late Saturday night about good old "execution" again. You'll hate it. So will we. And so will they. j Neubert can be contacted at BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com DISCOVERY IS OUR MISSION FINDING A CURE IS OUR GOAL www.cancerresearch.purdue.edu GoldanDBlack express • volume 24, express 3 • 5