Purdue Football - We've got your Shame!

First of all, I have to preface this by saying that I have the utmost respect for (Purdue head football coach) Joe Tiller, and I will never forget what he did for this program. Purdue football was absolutely dismal for about 2 decades before he arrived in West Lafayette my freshman year. We've been to 8 bowl games in 8 years (one of only 8 universities to do so) and have achieved a spot in the national college football conscience. It's hard to complain about that considering what Purdue Football used to be.
That said, there is absolutely no excuse for the steaming pile that the team has laid on the turf this season. A brief recap: Last year we started out 5-0 and were on the national championship radar before a series of injuries, bad calls and freak accidents occurred and we lost 4 straight. The second half of the season was pretty rough, and we ended up losing 5 games by a combined 14 points. The losses were tough because they were all so close, but it still felt like we had a good team, who try as they might, just kept getting tough breaks. In the offseason we had a few key players graduate, but retained all 11 starters on our highly-ranked defense and were the 2005 preseason #11.
This year is a completely different story. We had trouble right out of the gate. Although we won our first 2 games, they were against crappy, crappy teams, and they were way to close for comfort. I listened to them on XM, and although I couldn't see what was going on, I could tell they were moving the ball much too well against us. Then, the freefall started.
After the first few losses we could come up with excuses. You know, They got the good calls, if we would have gotten a few more yards here, etc. But now, sitting at 2-4, our problems are pretty clear:
1. We have no defense whatsoever.
2. The offense absolutely stinks.
I really can't make any more excuses or offer Purdue fans hope. We stink.
For real though, here are main things I notice. And keep in mind that I've only been watching football for about 8 years, and the only organized sport I've ever been in is "Marching Band." The closest I've ever come to playing football was the time my freshman year when a Notre Dame receiver ran out of bounds while we were waiting to go on at halftime and kicked a hole through my buddy Eric's drum (I deftly dove out of the way). Seriously.

Section 1- Defense
1. Tackling is abysmal. It's not uncommon to see 3-4 missed tackles on a play before the opponent goes down. That seems like it should be pretty basic.
2. Pass coverage is awful. Just watch. When the opponent catches a ball, there's no defenders within 5 yards of him.
3. We cannot stop the run. We're making average running backs Heisman contenders. Giant holes in the line.
4. We're not pressuring the Quarterback. Answer me this: If we're not covering the pass, stuffing the run or going after the Quarterback, what exactly is the defense doing?

Section 2- Offense
1. Poor play calling. This can be blamed on the coaching. If we run up the middle on every first down, they may catch on. Although to be fair they have been mixing it up a little more recently.
2. The option offense. It's just not working. Isn't that obvious? We keep staying with it, though. What's it going to take for us to change? Doesn't anyone else remember that Kirsch was fine when he stepped in for Kyle Orton in the spread system? More specifically, the running back stays way too far behind the quarterback for this to ever work. I think the coaches got way too excited by the fact that Kirsch could run a little on a broken down play, so they decided to scheme for him to run. He's just not fast enough for that.

Section 3- Kirsch
1. HE NEVER LOOKS AROUND. I can't stress this enough. He takes the snap, stares at his intended receiver, watches, watches, then either throws to him or runs if he's covered. Not only does everyone on the field know exactly where he's going to throw, wide open guys are frantically waving their arms on the other side of the field to no avail. I used to blame him, but now I blame the coaches for letting it continue. For God's sake, at least pretend to look for another receiver once in a while! Someone else finally asked about this in the Indy Star, but the dude totally misunderstood the question.
2. He pitches the ball way too early on the option. The whole point is to get defenders to commit to you, then toss the ball to the running back. As soon as it looks like someone is coming for Kirsch, he tosses the ball. Since the defenders were nowhere near him yet, they just adjust and get the running back. He does this every time, and we still run the play.
3. He has horrible accuracy/range. He's pretty off target most of the time, but if he has to throw more than 10 yards, forget about it. Against Northwestern this weekend he was throwing passes that were easily 5 yards over the receiver's head. He throws interceptions that are so blatantly to the defender, sometimes it's not clear which receiver he was aiming for. I've never watched a Big 10 football game and thought "Wow, I could suit up and play quarterback better than this guy" until this year.
4. He just doesn't get it. He made the following quote to the Purdue Exponent: "I thought I was playing fine. We were moving the ball. The drives were stopping around the 20, but we were getting field goals." He also said he had "no idea" why he was pulled from the game. Well Brandon, you were playing terribly, and we were down 28-16 to Northwestern.

My point is this: I know next to nothing about football, and I can see all kinds of problems. We didn't lose very many players from last season, and the coaching staff is the same, so what's the problem? What has gone so wrong? There was so much hope this year. At Purdue they're evening selling shirts that say "Destination: Pasadena" on them- you can find them on the discount rack. All I wanted was to keep the bowl streak alive, and that hope is all but dead. Now, I just want to see some effort out there.

Win or lose, I am a Purdue fan for life.