Purdue’s season has gone from encouraging to ugly in a hurry, and Saturday’s 34-29 loss to Maryland was the latest punch to the gut.
The Boilermakers had chances. Plenty of them.
They moved the ball, they got into scoring range, and for long stretches the defense gave them enough to build on. But Purdue never put the whole thing together, and that split-screen effort is exactly why the game slipped away.
The most glaring problem was the red zone. Purdue reached Maryland territory six times and came away with field goals on four of those trips.
The Boilermakers managed just one touchdown, a two-yard run by Fame Ijeboi, and then came up empty on the drive that could have won it. On the final possession, Purdue got to the Maryland 16-yard line with five seconds left, only for Ryan Browne to be sacked by Zion Elee to end the game.
That finish fit the day. Purdue did enough to stay in it, but not enough to finish.
There was at least a stretch where the defense looked ready to hold up its end. In the first half, the Boilermakers kept Maryland to seven points, and that touchdown came after Ricardo Cooper Jr. ripped off a 56-yard kickoff return. If Purdue had cashed in on even a couple of those early possessions, the lead could have grown fast.
Instead, the second half turned into the kind of collapse Purdue has been trying to avoid. Maryland found explosive plays in bunches, including a 75-yard untouched touchdown run from DeJuan Williams and an 87-yard score when Chris Durr Jr. turned a screen pass into a house call.
The Terrapins scored 27 of their 34 points after halftime and put up three touchdowns in the third quarter alone. The 34 points were Maryland’s most against a Big Ten team since 2023.
One bright spot kept shining through the mess: true freshman kicker Nico Cavanillas Lozano. He was perfect again, hitting all five of his field goal attempts, with a long of 47 yards. Lozano is now 21-for-22 on the season, with his only miss coming against Wake Forest in the second game of the year, Purdue’s first game against a Power Four opponent this season.
He’s been one of the few steady pieces for Purdue, and Saturday was another reminder of how much he’s carrying.
In Other News...
Purdue Makes A Late Defensive Change As Barry Odom Tries To Stop Slide
Purdues defensive struggles finally prompted a change after the loss to Maryland, with head coach Barry Odom moving on from defensive coordinator Kevin Kane effective immediately. Kane had been hired after the 2025 season and was no stranger to the program, having previously served as Purdues defensive coordinator in 2023 and 2024, but the Boilermakers issues on that side of the ball have only grown more difficult to ignore.
For Odom, the timing underscores how urgent the situation has become as Purdue tries to halt its slide and salvage some stability on defense. The move leaves the Boilermakers with a major staff question in the middle of the season, and it puts the focus squarely on how quickly they can reset before the next chance to respond on the field. [Read more 🡒]
Barry Odoms Purdue Defense Gamble Just Blew Up
Barry Odoms first major defensive move at Purdue has already come undone, with the Boilermakers parting ways with Kevin Kane after just nine games of the 2026 season. The decision came after a stretch of poor defensive play that left the unit under heavy criticism, and Odom has since acknowledged that bringing Kane in was a mistake.
Even with the dismissal, Purdue is still tied to Kane financially for the long haul, with his salary set to run through the end of his contract in December 2027. It is the kind of expensive misfire that underscores how quickly a staff decision can turn into a program-wide issue, especially when the results on the field never catch up to the expectation. [Read more 🡒]
Purdues Latest Collapse Exposed A Bigger Problem For Barry Odom
Purdues 34-29 loss to Maryland landed with the kind of thud that lingers beyond a single Saturday, especially for a program trying to steady itself under Barry Odom. Afterward, Odom met with the media alongside Ryan Browne, Charles Correa and DNylon Morrisette, and the mood was unmistakably grim as the Boilermakers tried to sort through another game that slipped away in the margins.
What made this one sting was how familiar the problems sounded. Odom pointed to defensive breakdowns and situational mistakes as the difference, the sort of issues that can turn a competitive afternoon into a frustrating loss in a hurry. For Purdue, the bigger concern is not just the result itself but the pattern it suggests, with the staff now facing a harder question about how quickly those lapses can be cleaned up. [Read more 🡒]