Hudson Card tied his career high with three touchdown passes and scored on a 10-yard run with 2:39 left Saturday, giving the Purdue Boilermakers a 35-31 victory over Indiana and their straight win in the Old Oaken Bucket series.
The Boilermakers (4-8, 3-6) had lost five of their previous six games but capped the 100th season at Ross-Ade Stadium by celebrating for the 300th time on its home turf.
Indiana (3-9, 1-8) lost its final three games by a combined total of 10 points and blowing late leads in all three. The Hoosiers lost seven of their last eight in coach Tom Allen’s seventh full season.
And this time it was an errant kickoff out of bounds that helped Card throw his ace. He found Deion Burks for 44 yards on the first play and eluded a couple of tackles as he sprinted the final 10 yards to give Purdue its biggest lead of the game.
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Indiana marched to the Boilermakers 35-yard line on its final drive but was stopped on third-and-1 and Brendan Sorsby was called for intentional grounding on fourth down to seal Purdue’s victory.
Card was 21 of 34 with 275 yads and rushed 12 times for 85 yards. Burks had seven receptions for 84 yards.
Sorsby was 17 of 31 with 226 yards, three touchdown passes and three interceptions while rushing 15 times for 54 yards. E.J. Williams had five catches for 97 yards.
It looked like Purdue had swung the game with Card’s 16-yard TD pass to Drew Biber with 12 seconds left in the first half and a 32-yard field goal on the first possession of the second half to give Purdue a 15-14 lead — its first of the game.
But Jaylin Lucas‘ 100-yard sprint on the ensuing kickoff, the fourth from that distance in school history, gave Indiana a 21-15 edge. After a Purdue field goal, Sorsby hooked up with Josh Henderson to make it 28-18, setting up a wild fourth quarter.
Purdue closed to 28-25 on the first play when Card perfectly faked a run up the middle, then stepped back and found a wide open Devin Mockobee streaming down the sideline for a 38-yard score. They tied it on a 35-yard field goal with 8:41 to play.
Indiana answered with Chris Freeman‘s tie-breaking 39-yard field goal with 5:09 remaining, but Card had one more play and pulled it off.
Boilermakers tight end Garrett Miller was carted off the field late in the first half with his left leg immobilized.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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