Fame Ijeboi was the answer to that first-half mess. He'd flashed early with 54 yards on 8 carries before the break, then kept getting the ball and kept making it work — 11 carries for 87 yards, 2 catches for 30 more, and a touchdown that earned him player-of-the-game honors. The defense turned it a different way: with Purdue up 30-6 in the third quarter, defensive back Don Saunders picked off Indiana State backup quarterback Brady Allen and took it to the house, pushing the lead to 37-6 and turning a half-competitive game into a laugher.
Indiana State didn't fold entirely. Allen found Jayden Reed for a 45-yard touchdown late, part of a 13-point fourth quarter that made the final margin look tighter than the game actually was. For Purdue, though, the story of the night was less about the scoreboard and more about cleaning up: six penalties for 45 yards is the kind of self-inflicted mess that got buried by a 44-point outburst against an FCS club, but won't get buried against Wake Forest or the rest of the Big Ten schedule.
There were no reported injuries out of the opener, which is its own kind of win for a program trying to simply get through a season healthy after last year's collapse. The offensive line held up well enough to spring Ijeboi repeatedly even while the penalty yardage piled up behind them, and a defense that forced multiple second-half takeaways gave Odom something concrete to point to heading into next week.
None of this settles anything about where Purdue actually is. Beating an FCS team by 25 after trailing by single digits at halftime is a mixed verdict, not a statement — the kind of week 1 result that reads differently depending on whether the penalties and the slow start were opening-night rust or a preview of the same issues that sank last season. Odom's team will find out fast enough once Big Ten play starts.