With five straight losses since a lone win over Indiana State, Purdue welcomed its bye week.
“You need to get a rest and drop your shoulders a little bit,” Boilermakers coach Darrell Hazell said Tuesday during his weekly news conference. “That’s probably the biggest thing, to decompress a little bit, because everyone’s working so hard and they’re so tight, you’re not getting the result you want.
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“There comes a time to step back and really take a hard look, take a deep breath, and refresh your mind and your body. There’s certain times when you’re rolling, you don’t want to take a week off. But where we are, it was good for us to get away. I know it was good for me.”
The Boilermakers (1-6, 0-3 Big Ten) return with a game against Nebraska (3-5, 1-3) on Saturday at Ross-Ade Stadium.
They worked on fundamentals. They self-scouted.
The coaches hit the road to recruit, with defensive tackle, offensive tackle and kicker among the priorities.
When the team met Sunday after a break, Hazell sensed “tremendous energy.” The togetherness and work ethic have not “wavered,” he said.
No dramatic changes have been made.
“A lot of tweaks,” said Hazell, adding he wants the team to be “more aggressive in schemes in all phases” coming out of the bye. “We’re not going to push the panic button. We understand where our shortcomings are, and we have to fix them.
“Obviously, you want to win. I want to play good in all three phases of our football team. We have to put together a complete game with the offense, the defense and the special teams, and really hit on all cylinders.”
Nebraska has suffered its five losses by a combined 13 points, with no deficit greater than a five-point season-opening setback against BYU. The Cornhuskers have experienced growing pains in coach Mike Riley’s first season in Lincoln.
“Very bizarre year for Nebraska football,” Hazell said. “You watch their games, all phases, and you shake your head the last three minutes of four or five of those football games where they had a chance to win them and fell short. They still have a lot of good players on the field and they can hurt you. I’m sure coach Riley is pulling his hair out because of some of those losses they’ve had.”
Injury updates: The status of running back D.J. Knox (ankle) for the Nebraska game was uncertain after he suffered the injury at Wisconsin.
Freshman Markell Jones is listed as the starter, with Lake Central graduate David Yancey second on the depth chart. Keyante Green and Keith Byars also could get looks as backups.
But in the likely event Knox is out, expect a heavy dose of Jones.
“We would probably go with Markell until he needed a blow,” Hazell said.
Jimmy Herman (hamstring) has been improving, but it was unclear if the linebacker would be available against the Cornhuskers after missing three of the last four games..
Sophomore middle linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley underwent surgery Monday to repair his torn left ACL. Bentley, one of the team’s captains, was expected to be back on campus Tuesday.
Backup quarterback Austin Appleby (leg) has been fully cleared after having been unavailable the last two games.
Twitter: @MichaelOsipoff
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