Salukis prep for aggressive Purdue offense that scored 31 points in its opener

CARBONDALE, Ill. — SIU defensive coordinator Lee Pronschinske was impressed with the game tape of Purdue’s 31-0 win over Ball State in Week 1, especially the Boilermakers’ team speed, chemistry and overall talent-level on offense.

Purdue is led by quarterback Ryan Browne, a third-year sophomore, who briefly entered the transfer portal before deciding to return to West Lafayette. He completed 18-of-26 passes against the Cardinals for 311 yards, for an impressive average of 17.3 yards per completion. He threw two touchdown passes and ran for one more.

Coordinator's Corner with Lee Pronschinske

SD: Talk about the challenge of defending an explosive Purdue offense that opened the season with 31 points a week ago.

LP: Coach (Josh) Henson, coming from the USC tree with Lincoln Riley, there's not many college football coaches that do a better job at attacking space, creating mismatches, and being extremely creative. They're going to put together a really good game plan to try and find an area to attack, and it will be fun for us to prepare for it.

Those guys are playing extremely fast, and you can tell it's a tight knit group. Six starters were on this team last year and for continuity sake, that’s important. You can see when you turn on the tape, the touchdown where the quarterback scrambles in on the right side, the first thing he's doing is looking for his O-line to celebrate with, the wide receivers are over there celebrating with the O-line. It sticks out to you as an indicator of where they’re at as a unit, there's a lot of buy-in.

Jake Parrella (20)

SD: What’s your impression of QB Ryan Browne and running back Devin Mockobee, who is on the Doak Walker Award Watch List?

LP: Ryan's an extremely talented kid. I have a lot of respect for him to stay (at Purdue) in a world where a lot of people would potentially transfer. He won the starting job and was named captain this fall. I think that says everything about that young man's character. Then you turn on the tape and he's big, he's got an explosive arm. He's very agile, he’s fast, and so he's kind of a complete package. I think the sky's the limit for him and he's going to be a really good quarterback in the Big Ten.

Devin runs with his hair on fire, man. He craves contact. He was going down the offensive right sideline in the second half, and he’s got every opportunity to step out of bounds. He sticks his outside foot in the ground, comes back, and lowers his helmet and tries going through a DB's face. It’s a really good opportunity for us to match up against a blue-collar, physical running back like him, because that's the type of back we're going to see the rest of the year in the Missouri Valley. I think he's an elite running back, and he's gotten some preseason honors that show that, but you can tell he's a catalyst that they're going to want to go through him early to get the offense in a rhythm.

Denym Mitchell (27), Andrew Behm (46), Vinny Pierre Jr. (4)

SD: What’s your overall message to the defense in terms of their approach to facing an opponent of Purdue’s caliber?

LP: Our message is, nothing changes. It's the opportunity that's in front of us because it's the next opportunity. We get a chance to go out there this Saturday, play a football game with our brothers on the team, on the unit, in our position groups, as a staff. That's all you can ask for. We're just really excited to have another opportunity to go play. Football is one of the craziest sports where you put in so much time in the weight room and summer workouts, but you're only guaranteed 12 games. So you got to make the most of each one.

SD: You had to be pleased with the run defense on Saturday, holding Thomas More to 60 yards rushing.

LP: Tip of the hat to the D-line and linebackers, I thought they did a great job playing with vertical penetration and getting downhill fast. Now, there's a couple fits we would like back where, as a coach, it's our job to nitpick and make sure that we're performing at the highest level. There's still some stuff that we have to clean up. I thought for a Week 1 tackling performance, it was above par, but there's a couple plays where we put some stuff on tape, like on that reverse, that can't be us. We can't have that be out there and have that said about us. In the next 11 weeks, we're going to continue to see really good offensive lines, really good running backs and creative play-callers. So we have to make sure we continue to grow.

Peyton Reeves (90), Jagger Williams (3)

SD: Amir Dwight was really disruptive with two TFLs and a strip-sack. How'd you evaluate his game?

LP: We gave him our defensive player-of-the-week. Not only those plays that show up on the stat sheet, but he did a lot of selfless stuff that doesn't show up in the stats. Peyton Reeves got credited with a tackle for a gain of zero, but that was all Amir, executing his 1/11. He got in the quarterback's face, forced the ball to come out a little bit early, that created an opportunity for P Reeves to come through scot-free, and he makes his play. He had a QB hurry where the ball was a little behind and allowed for Jay Black (McClendon) to rally to it. It’s what we preached all fall campaign, selfless defense.

SD: Your true freshmen had an opportunity in the second half and made some huge plays, including the interceptions by David Obadein, Cam Cason.

LP: David's play was extremely cool and that's one of those stories, if you're fortunate enough to be a father one day, you tell your kids and they're probably not going to believe your second-ever college snap on defense is a pick-six. He's going to have to pull up StrongDawgs to show him that that's real-life. Cam making a good ball-outbreak and picking that thing off. Cam has the mindset that he's fearless out there. Now, he's got to be able to beat the quarterback in space there, but that's two guys that throughout fall camp showed up with really good plays and played to the standard of our identity.

SD: Could it change your thinking as to whether these guys play in four games, or perhaps 12 games?

LP: I think that's kind of the beauty of that four-game (redshirt) rule, and a lot of it has to do with (special teams) Coach (Nathan) Frame, too. It's our job, at the end of the day, on offense, defense, special teams to make sure we have the best 11 players out there. We make that commitment to this program and to Coach Hill. If getting some of these young guys out there for seven, eight, 10, 20 snaps a game, whatever it is, gives us the best opportunity as a program to win football games, we’re going to do it.

I think that's what's cool about the four-game rule. It allows you to get a good gauge if they can actually do it or not. Back in the day, you had to make a bold decision, that if we we put Cam C in the game, and maybe he wasn't ready, then you can't look back. I think that's one of the good rules the NCAA has put into play.

Jeremiah McClendon (8), Andrew Behm (46)

SD: When an FCS plays an FBS team it’s always noted that you play with fewer scholarships. In terms of depth, what’s your thought process on how many players you use, versus keeping players fresh?

LP: I think it's a two-part answer. There's only 22 guys on the field at a time, and whichever group executes at a higher level is going to feel good in the locker room after the game. So we never let that be a part of our thought process. We get an opportunity to go play a really good football team on Saturday, which we'll do for the next 11 weeks, and that opportunity really excites us.

I think we have depth, guys who will play, because the dropoff is nonexistent. On the D-line we’d love to keep it fresh so when it's time to affect the passer and stop the run, we make sure some guys are fresh for those situations. Then I think there's going to be times at linebacker, and just the back-seven in general, we're going to ride hot hands. As a position coach we tell our guys there's going to be certain games where someone's having a really good game, and someone might be a little off, and it's our job as a teammate and as a coach to ride the hot hand as we call it, let the guy that's hooping, let him hoop. If it's not your day, just get ready to pick it up and get back to work on Sunday.