By: @purduefan69 | September 5th, 2021

Trap game? What a brave new world where Purdue Football is living in these days. Let me tell you, the ingredients were all there for the black and gold faithful to be eating a crap sandwich. UCONN fired their head coach the week of, started a mobile backup QB, and an early injury to Zander Horvath loomed ominous early on. 

Fun fact, locomotives take time to pick up steam. After an atrocious first series, Purdue was able to roll out of bed (figuratively) to a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter thanks to the bright stars on both sides of the ball. Big George Karlaftis seemed all over the field, Payne Durrahm and David Bell scored the first two touchdowns respectively by way of Cactus Jack Plummers right arm. The offense gained steam running King Doerue and Dylan Downing behind a dominant o-line push.

Before the halftime festivities even started this game switched in tone, from a potential trap game, to keep every starter healthy before next week's matchup against Notre Dame. Purdue tight end Garrett Miller went down with a leg injury on a 2nd and goal 1 yard touchdown by King Doerue as fans groaned about playing AT a bottom dwelling FBS program. 

Today's attraction quickly turned into a laugher as David Bell drew shades of Achilles slicing through Trojan soldiers outside the walls of Troy. Every time the ball touched his blessed hands, UCONN defenders appeared to be playing on a slip and slide as he made a cut to the open field, or outright truck-stick a poor DB on route to the endzone. Bell finished the first half with a whopping 6 receptions for 121 yards and 3 touchdowns, also adding a 26 yard run to boot. I believe that is what you would call UCONN getting their BELL RUNG for a 35-0 Boilermaker lead at halftime.

The second half was a snooze fest as UCONN couldn’t stand up against second and third stringers from Purdue. AOC and a host of 2nd stringers started the second half culminating in a 16 yard TD to Mershawn Rice, followed by TJ Sheffield's first career touchdown. O’Connells day was quite short as we got pretty deep into the depth chart as we got to see our first sighting of Austin Burton. Heck, we even got a sneak preview of RS Freshman QB Michael Alaimo.

 My takaways from today's game is this: Purdue showed up and took the game seriously, David Bell is the best WR in the B1G, and we get one more week of dreaming of being western division champs. With a final score of 49-0, Purdue rolls into South Bend or Soldier Field if you believe CBS) on a high note against a limping Fighting Irish. #BoilerUp