DU U PURDU?

Saturday night featured an intrastate battle between the #22 Purdue Boilermakers at home versus the now #11 Notre Dame Fighting Irish of South Bend, IN at Ross-Ade Stadium on Purdue's W. Lafayette, IN campus. I was there, so naturally, I must report on the scene.

Let me start by saying that the Maryland football scene could only dream about being this big. Tailgating is definitely an industry in itself in W. Lafayette. The parking lots were filling up at a time when most noon games were beginning...and Purdue's had a 6:45pm scheduled kickoff. Winnebago's, cars, SUV's, modified ambulances...you name the transportation and it was on display in the parking lots, sports fields, and golf course (yes they allow parking ON the Purdue golf course). Well before game time, a large tent city mushroomed all over campus. Black, gold, and a speckling of green.

Tailgating, for many, is an art. Boilermaker fans are artistes. Our own Mexican themed tailgate, a mere 150 yard 7-iron from the nearest green (how do I know this?...the white plaque was under my cooler), featured a variety of dips, tacos, enchiladas, desserts, beers, wines, and mixed drinks. For those with a fever, and only one prescription...more cowbell...we even had that!















A few beers, a feast worthy of Incan king himself, and a Heisman pose later, it was time to pack up the chairs and head to the stadium.
















Ross-Ade Stadium hosted the evening's main event. Yeah, tailgating is a great time, but this wasn't Maryland circa 1997. There was actually a real football game occurring inside on this night between two ranked teams. In my days as a young Terrapin, the strategy used to be: a) tailgate all morning, then through the first quarter; b) at the start of the second quarter sit in the student section until the end of the third quarter; c) check the scoreboard to confirm that the Terps were getting their shells beat off them; d) return to the parking lot for the fourth quarter and beyond; and finally, f) head to Terrapin Station, drink a few more beers and stay out until either 1) it was closing time, or 2) you were thrown out for some BS infraction. Whatever, dude!

But this night at Ross-Ade was different than those lazy afternoons at Byrd. The highly ranked Irish were set to invade the home of the spoiler Boilers.

















Night games are always something special. In Maryland's case, it meant that the typically classless students had been out all day drinking, and that attendance at the game was just an excuse to take that high to another level. It never failed that being in the student section at a night game was more prison riot than pep section. Granted, I wasn't in the student section at Ross-Ade on Saturday night, but the students seem far better behaved than I remember at night games when I was a student. No fights, no bottle throwing, no choruses of expletives. The only bad behavior I witnessed was the batting around of a giant, inflatable 8-foot tall male organ through the stands. But that was more funny than shocking.








Football was played, but it was an ugly evening for the Boilers. The Irish scored easily on their first possession, marching straight down the field for a score. Purdue countered with a drive of their own, and only a beautiful defensive play by the right CB prevented a long pass from Purdue QB Brandon Kirsch from becoming the equalizing score. In the end, Purdue came up empty. Notre Dame's second possession was much like the first. Like a hot knife through butter, they sliced through the home team's D with surprising ease. Suddenly, it was 14-0. It only got worse.















Purdue's next possession culminated in a march deep into Irish territory. From about the 20, Purdue ran a sweep around the right side. The RB turned the corner and saw nothing but open field ahead of him. As he hot-dogged it down the sidelines, a swift Irish player was able to cut him off from the end zone at the one, and push him out of bounds. On the next play, the Boilermakers fumbled trying to stretch a blast up the middle into a TD. ND ball.

At the half, ND ended up with 28 points to Purdue's goose egg, and an ungodly amount of offensive yardage. Irish QB Brady Quinn would sit out most of the fourth quarter and still end up with 440+ yards passing.

After the half, the pure embarrassment of Purdue University really began. Take a look at the picture below. This is how it should look when Purdue scores a TD (these flags were run out after Purdue's second TD).













Upon scoring its first TD of the game, apparently the cheerleaders forgot what it was like. The yellow P before the word "P U R D U E" was run out, no problem. But all that followed was the P and the R. The P and R ran the entire normal route. Upon dropping his P, the P cheerleader started pointing to and yelling at the U, D, U, and E flag bearers, obviously berating them for their insolence.

Purdue scored again, and the scene photographed above took place. Maybe the sideline tantrum worked!

Alas, it was just the set up for further embarrassment. Although Purdue was scoring, so was ND. After its own second TD of the half, ND ran out its flags in perfect sequence as they had the whole night: Logo - I - R- I - S - H. Fed up with the Irish disrespecting his turf, our own PO'd cheerleader of the pointing and yelling earlier in the evening, grabbed a Purdue flag and started running it around at the same time. Problem was, he picked up the E. Blinded by his roid-rage, our disgruntled cheerleader frantically ran around the endzone with a giant E. EEEEEEEEEEEEE! That's how you fire up the crowd.

As the coup de grace, Purdue scored a third TD in the second half. The flummoxed cheerleaders responded first by tossing a female cheerleader into the black night sky, then missing her on her return from orbit, scattering their little pyramid like bowling pins. As the fallen cheerleaders regrouped, they headed to the flags to celebrate the third TD. The sequence: Logo - P - U - R - D - U - ....almost E, but the E guy accidentally picked up a black flag with the little Purdue train logo on it instead and, after hesitating for a moment, he decided to just go with it.

P - U - R - D - U.

After giving up 49 points and 621 yards on defense, it's surprising they didn't just run around with P - U.

The rest of the evening was just a blur. I'll be back to Ross-Ade in November for the Michigan State game. Stay tuned.














PS: One thing that puzzled us listening to the post game show on the ride home is that nearly every one of the callers demanded a change on offense. Granted, Purdue was down 28 points before the offense kicked in, so ND's D obviously dialed it back a little in the second half, but here are the offensive stats for the game compared:

Total Yards: ND (621), P (514)
Passing: ND (468), P (350)
Rushing: ND (153), P (164)

Looks like more of a defensive problem to me.