More of the Same: 3 Thoughts From Purdue's 28-7 Loss to Iowa

Purdue's postseason hopes were officially dashed in Iowa City on Saturday night. Barry Odom's Boilers suffered a fourth straight loss this week, falling 28-7 to Iowa. They're now 3-7 for the year and will miss out on bowl eligibility for a fourth consecutive season.

Iowa won the battle in the trenches on both sides of the football, dominated the time of possession and ran the ball effectively in front of a home crowd at Kinnick Stadium. Purdue had opportunities to make this an entertaining game, but it failed to do the little things necessary to have a chance.

It's hard to say we learned anything from Purdue's loss in Iowa City on Saturday night, but here are a few thoughts from the game.

Nov 14, 2026; Iowa City, Iowa, USA; Purdue Boilermakers running back Fame Ijeboi (2) runs the ball. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

More of the same

Not to sound too much like a 30 for 30 advertisement, but what if I told you Iowa ran the football without a problem (246 yards), converted a majority of its third-down situations (10-of-15), and Purdue failed to convert in the red zone (1-of-4)? Would you say that you've seen that movie before?

Throw in a few explosive plays, and you won't just describe Purdue's performance against Iowa on Saturday night at Kinnick Stadium; you'll encompass everything that has gone wrong for the Boilermakers over the last four weeks.

At this point, there's a large enough sample size to draw one conclusion: Purdue isn't much better than it was last season. There was hope after wins over Illinois and Minnesota, but that bubble burst with dreadful performance after dreadful performance in the past four games.

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Some special teams victories

Well, hey, if you're not going to leave Kinnick Stadium with a win, how about beating Iowa at their own game? Purdue wasn't particularly crisp on special teams, but it won the battle against the Hawkeyes — a rarity against a Kirk Ferentz-coached team.

Iowa kicker Caden Buhr missed all three of his field goal attempts on Saturday. He entered the game converting on 14 of 16 tries this season, but he was never connected this week. Buhr missed kicks from 52 and 53 yards out. Then, a 37-yarder was blocked by Purdue's Keyshawn Burgos.

After losing four straight games and getting eliminated from bowl eligibility, Purdue is just looking for small victories.

Iowa didn't do anything special

What has become increasingly frustrating is that Purdue's opponents haven't needed to be overly creative to score points defensively. They also haven't needed to be dominant to get defensive stops.

Several of Iowa's chunk plays came on handoffs that went right up the gut of the defense. The Hawkeyes incorporated a few sweeps during the game, but most of Iowa's success came from simplistic play-calling.

Defensively, Iowa ended the game with just one tackle for loss and didn't have a sack in the game. Yet the Boilers were held to 303 yards of offense and scored just seven points.

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