Devin Mockobee Among Key Pieces for Purdue in Preparation for Daunting Michigan Defense
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The last time Devin Mockobee was at Lucas Oil Stadium, it was to cheer on the Indianapolis Colts as a high school student. The walk-on running back from Boonville, Ind., is now a key piece for a Purdue team that'll be playing in the first Big Ten Football Championship Game in program history on Saturday.
"I never really looked that much into the future to be able to tell what was going to happen," Mockobee said. "If you would have told me four years ago — my freshman year of high school — where I'm at now, I'd tell you you were lying."
Mockobee is an emerging talent for the Boilermakers out of the backfield. He stepped up to the plate due to injuries at the running back position and has since led the team with 165 carries for 849 yards and eight touchdowns this season.
Now, he needs just 26 yards on the ground to match Markell Jones' program record for yards rushing by a freshman. He'll have a chance to hit that mark against No. 2 Michigan when the two programs kick off for the conference title game.
"It's kind of hard to put into words, especially me myself," Mockobee said. "Being someone who's sort of new to all this and whatnot, having my role coming up and we have an opportunity doing something that no one else at Purdue has been able to do. I just feel like it's really special and it will feel really real once we get there."
The Wolverines enter the matchup with the second-ranked overall defense in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The stout unit is giving up just 262.2 total yards of offense per game, which includes a Big Ten-best 84.8 yards on the ground.
Michigan has allowed just one player all season to rush for 100 yards or more. Illinois junior running back Chase Brown carried the ball 29 times for 140 yards and two touchdowns in an effort that nearly ended in a victory for the Fighting Illini, but the Wolverines escaped defeat on Nov. 19 with a narrow 19-17 win.
The Boilermakers will find as many possible ways to get their playmakers the football in the open field, including Mockobee, in order to give themselves a chance at a major upset.
"Right now Charlie [Jones] has played outstanding, Payne Durham, Devin Mockobee, and then the others have been complements off them," Purdue coach Jeff Brohm said. "We've got to use them all, so it's not like they need to get all the touches, but we definitely need to make sure that we find a lot of ways to get the ball in their hands.
"That's the challenge, is making sure that those guys can touch it when they're covered, and when we need to do something different, the other guys need to step up and make plays for us."
While his teammates and coaches have touted his ability to run the football since before he made his way onto the field as a starter, Mockobee has made it a point to improve as a pass catcher since his arrival in West Lafayette.
The work he's put in over the past two seasons is showing in the numbers. Mockobee has caught 23 passes for 217 yards out of the backfield. He's resilient and tough to bring down in a one-on-one situation.
Last week in Purdue's 30-16 win on the road against Indiana, he led the team with a season-high five receptions that went for 58 yards.
"He maybe has maybe one or two drops in the year, but he's done a good job of working on that and making sure that he's able to catch the football," Purdue offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Brian Brohm said. "He's such a weapon in open space, so for him to have good hands and be to catch the football, that takes his game to the next level."
The Boilermakers will need everyone to take their play to another gear against the Wolverines if they want to come out as Big Ten champions. And as the team continues through the week, players understand that Michigan — which aspirations of a national championship — is the team playing with all the pressure.
Purdue is once again in the position of the underdog, a place that Mockobee has been in his entire career.
"I say all the pressure's on them because I feel like a lot of people are saying we're overlooked and whatnot," Mockobee said. "Everyone's counting us out and everyone is saying that Michigan is going to pretty much have it in the bag. But I think that makes it best for us because no one's going to expect it. We don't have any pressure on us, so we can just go out and run free."
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D.J. Fezler is a staff writer for BoilermakersCountry.com. Hailing from The Region, he is from Cedar Lake in Northwest Indiana and has spent the last two years covering Purdue football and basketball.