Just another late-season game between two losing teams going through the motions? This is anything but that on one side of the equation, and we believe that Joe Tiller not only gets a chance to carry away the Old Oaken Bucket one last time, but does it in style. So in the kind of game in which the oddsmakers often struggle to incorporate the emotional factors properly, we have a most fair line to play a Purdue blowout.

The Boilermaker run under Tiller has been a special one, with 10 bowl appearances. And he has been more than a football coach at the university, also being awarded the “Order of the Griffin,” a special Purdue honor that is not tied to athletics. That means not only a concerted effort by the players to send him out with a final win, but also more than the usual fan support for a losing team playing their last game. And with 17 seniors slated to start for the last time on this field the emotion runs particularly deep, especially for QB Curtis Painter, who is finally healthy again, and can erase some of the memories from a disappointing season by exploiting a papier-mache Indiana defense.

Can Indiana make the same claims about wanted to erase bitter memories, and for the seniors to go out in style? No, it is an entirely different situation for the Hoosiers. Depth has been an annual problem for this program as the Big 10 battles take their toll, and note that they are an awful 4-13 ATS as underdogs in the last three games of the season since 2002.

But this autumn it has been even worse. Because of injuries a total of 16 different starters have missed at least one game, and the area hardest hit has been the secondary, where starting safeties Nick Polk and Austin Thomas, and starting CB Chris Phillips, have all been lost for the season. Because of this there is simply nothing left in the tank on that side of the ball, having allowed averages of 42 points and 518.3 points per game in three November outings, and against Wisconsin and Penn State the past two weeks they were out-scored 58-0 in the second half, a tell-tale sign that there is no fight left. And note that as bad as those two games were on the scoreboard, Indiana was actually +6 in turnovers over those eight quarters!

It is more than just emotion here for Purdue – this is a team that could have been much better than the results if not for so many injuries. But not only is Painter as close to full health as he has been in quite some time, Eric Hedstrom and Sean Sester will also be returning in the OL, after each missed the last two games. The pieces were back in place for a blowout anyway, but the special nature of Saturday’s setting pushes the rest of it over the top.

Free Pick: Purdue -11 (-110)