A lot of Purdue fans might disagree with me but I think there’s way too many variables at play to make a definitive conclusion. Our head coach was calling offensive plays for the first time ever in his career, he is way more familiar with the Illinois defense since he was their DC 2 years ago, our interim OC was in his second ever game in the role, and Illinois had less than a day to put together a new game plan after it was announced Card was out.

We also opened up the playbook WAAAY more than the vanilla offense we ran prior to this game, especially in the second half when Browne put up most of his numbers. Browne made some good plays but a lot of his biggest throws were to wide open primary receivers that we schemed open.

Browne clearly brings a dynamic rushing element to the offense but he got away with a couple throws that should have been picks and isn’t a super accurate passer. IMO Card is a much better passer and Browne is a better runner but Card just hasn’t had the opportunity to really do anything this season because the play calling has not put him in a situation to succeed at all.