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Purdue QB David Blough celebrated TD while being loaded onto ambulance

Purdue quarterback David Blough (11) suffered a season-ending injury in the win over Illinois. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Purdue quarterback David Blough (11) suffered a season-ending injury in the win over Illinois. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Purdue quarterback David Blough will miss the rest of the season after dislocating his right ankle in Saturday’s win over Illinois.

Blough, a junior, was injured when running with the ball in the fourth quarter against the Illini. Blough went to the ground awkwardly as he was being hit and his leg bent awkwardly. In addition to the dislocation, Boilermakers coach Jeff Brohm said Blough may have broken a bone and sustained ligament damage as well. The injury, Brohm said per GoldandBlack.com, will require around six months of rehabilitation after surgery on Tuesday.

As he was being carted off the field, Blough pumped up the crowd.

Two plays after Blough was injured, backup Elijah Sindelar threw a touchdown pass to Cole Herdman to increase the Purdue lead to 22-10. As he was being loaded onto an ambulance, Big Ten Network cameras showed Blough, sensing a touchdown was scored, smiling as the Purdue fight song was being played and later signaling touchdown.

(via BTN)
(via BTN)

Blough finishes the season with 1,103 yards, nine touchdowns and four interceptions. He also rushed for two touchdowns.

Though Blough has seen more playing time, Sindelar has appeared in all but one game this year and has made four starts. Sindelar, who has thrown for 939 yards, seven touchdowns and five interceptions on the year, will start the final three games of the year barring injury.

Brohm said Jared Sparks, who also plays receiver but has gotten a handful of snaps at QB, will be Sindelar’s backup. Brohm prefers to keep the redshirt on true freshman Nick Sipe, but acknowledged he may need to play if there is another serious injury.

From GoldandBlack.com:

“(Sparks) has got to practice at receiver,” Brohm said. “We’ve done that before (of splitting positions in practice). If he doesn’t get the reps in at receiver, he’s not experienced enough to handle that. He’s young at that position. He’s going to go to all those meetings. He’s going to practice at that position, and then we’ll spend some extra time with him to school him up on what he needs to know on offense and he’ll run the backup position for us and get enough reps. We’ll probably even give Nick Sipe a few, just in case.

“I think (Sparks) is improving as a receiver, but he’s still very green and we want to continue to develop him there and utilize him back behind the quarterback some and he has to be ready in case something happens.”

Before Saturday’s win, the Boilermakers lost three straight games by a possession: 17-9 at Wisconsin, 14-12 at Rutgers and 25-24 vs. Nebraska. Now 4-5 on the year, Purdue has to win two of its last three games to reach a bowl game. First up is a trip to Northwestern before heading to Iowa and hosting Indiana in the regular season finale.

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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!