The Best is Still Ahead for Purdue Quarterback Ryan Browne
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Ryan Browne may have played in nine games and made two starts in his previous two seasons at Purdue, but this year has still been a learning experience for the quarterback. Through the first month of the season, his coaches have been pleased with how he's handled the pressure.
The numbers won't overwhelm you through the first four games. Browne has thrown for 1,036 yards and six touchdowns with five interceptions. He's also rushed for two touchdowns and caught a touchdown pass as the Boilermakers have started the year 2-2.
But Browne's performance doesn't simply come down to statistics. What offensive coordinator Josh Henson likes most about his quarterback is his mindset.
"He's a competitor — he likes to compete and he wants to win," Henson told reporters on Monday. "I think he's playing really well. I think he can play better, and Ryan would tell you that, too. It's just little details ... maybe getting off a read when it looks cloudy and moving on. Sometimes, a great play is taking a five-yard hitch."
Henson and coach Barry Odom agreed that Browne has improved every week he's been Purdue's starting quarterback. It's not been perfect by any stretch, but he continues to make progress and gives his team opportunities to win games.
"Where he's at right now, I'm very pleased with," Henson said. "He's going to get better and better as the season goes on. Every day that we're out there practicing, we're going to improve. I look forward to watching him play the rest of the year."
What are Browne's greatest attributes?
Things haven't gone quite so well for Purdue the last two weeks. The Boilermakers dropped back-to-back games before the bye week, falling 33-17 to USC and dropping a 56-30 contest to Notre Dame.
In the loss to USC, Browne threw three red zone interceptions, a key in the Boilermakers' loss that afternoon. Yet the quarterback never seemed to lose confidence in himself, which kept Purdue in the game until late in the fourth quarter.
For Henson, that's exactly the type of mentality needed from a quarterback.
"He stays poised and calm. I think he's done a really good job, after a play that's not so good, of bouncing back ... he has a lot of self-belief," Henson said. "He does a really good job of controlling his emotions and coming back and playing the next play."
Browne doesn't live with those mistakes, either. He's able to compartmentalize those plays throughout the course of a game. When it's time to watch the film, though, he's eager to fix those issues.
That's just another reason why Henson and Odom have confidence in Browne to lead the offense for the rest of the season.
"I'm sure glad he's our quarterback," Odom said. "I think he's a special player, and he's gotten better every single week. Watching the things he needs to correct, he gets them corrected. He commands leadership of the offense."
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Dustin Schutte is the publisher of Purdue Boilermakers on SI and has spent more than a decade working in sports journalism. His career began in 2013, when he covered Big Ten football. He remained in that role for eight years before working at On SI to cover the Boilermakers. Dustin graduated from Manchester University in Indiana in 2010, where he played for the men's tennis team.
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