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Watch on ABC, and follow along here until the end.
Purdue led No. 2 Ohio State at halftime on Saturday night in West Lafayette, 14-3. The Boilermakers are aiming to pull off the season’s biggest upset so far.
You can watch the game on ABC. If you follow along here, we’ll update this post with new scores until the game ends, as well as any other big developments. (Yeah, Purdue has the ABC primetime game, thanks to a constellation of schedules and TV rights.)
Score updates on Ohio State vs. Purdue
Purdue 14, Ohio State 6
The Boilermakers’ defense held after Ohio State got down to the 6-yard line. Blake Haubeil knocked through a 23-yard field goal to make it a one-score game.
12:25 left in the third.
Halftime: Purdue 14, Ohio State 3
The Boilers scored on a 9-yard pass from David Blough to Rondale Moore 27 seconds before halftime. A fake field goal set that up, with holder Joe Schopper bootlegging to his left and beating a couple of Buckeyes to the marker on fourth-and-3.
"We understand that if we want to win this game, we're going to have to take some chances."
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) October 21, 2018
- @JeffBrohm said it at halftime, and he proved it just before the half with a fake FG followed by a @Rondale_Moore03 TD.
14-3 @BoilerFootball at half over No. 2 Ohio State: pic.twitter.com/0CHZW1JAxA
Purdue’s playing for something way bigger than an upset.
“Bigger than the game” is a tacky phrase, and I don’t like using it, but the Boilermakers are at the center of a really special sports story in this game.
Tyler Trent, a Purdue student, has terminal cancer. He’s forged a close bond with the team and head coach Jeff Brohm, and he told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi he made it a top priority to get to Ross Ade Stadium to watch the Boilermakers play this game. How he prepared for it:
Preparing for the game tonight! #BoilerUp#OnlyTheStrongpic.twitter.com/8GFTHKVO3f
— Tyler Trent (@theTylerTrent) October 20, 2018
Trent predicted on the ABC broadcast, during the second quarter, that Purdue would win 24-17. Knowing Trent’s story, good luck rooting against the Boilers.
oldtakesexposed: Tyler trent/rinaldi ABC College Football: Ohio State at Purdue https://t.co/W7Kyj1nxBypic.twitter.com/59H0oIqeIK
— FanSportsClips (@FanSportsClips) October 21, 2018
Everything else around this game feels pretty small. It’s still a big game, though, and for no reason bigger than what it might mean for the Boilers to win it for Trent.
Ohio State’s trying to avoid a first loss, though its Playoff hopes would still be intact if it got one.
The Buckeyes and Michigan are on a collision course to play a Big Ten East-deciding game on the last weekend of the regular season in Columbus.
Either team losing one conference game wouldn’t change that. It would take two surprising upsets against one of them to make that game any less important. As it stands, the winner of that game will play in the league title game, where it should beat whoever comes out of the Big Ten West. That would land Ohio State, for instance, in the Playoff, even if the Buckeyes lost to Purdue.
And Purdue coach Jeff Brohm has a chance to become the hot coaching candidate.
There really hasn’t been one of those this year. If Brohm wins and Bobby Petrino’s Louisville keeps struggling, calls for Brohm to return to his alma mater will grow louder.