Our boilers started the '07 campaign with a convincing and solid road win in a trap game versus Toledo, Saturday night.Hundreds tuned into ESPN U to watch ESPN football's "F" team produce and call the Boilers' first victory of this season. I am fortunate enough to have ESPN U at this time...so I got to see it. Here are my thoughts:
First- The Bad
>Frank Halliburton, of whom I am a big fan, was given a couple opportunities to contribute on this multi-faceted offense, and fumbled on his lone carry and dropped an easy pass late in the game.
>Not to be outdone, Kory Sheets, while having a pretty good game, had an inexplicable fumble in the first half. These two plays kept the game interesting for Toledo fans. Hopefully, the running backs will get rid of the dropsies in the coming weeks.
>Chris Summers missed his first field goal attempt of the season, which I wasn't too happy to see.
>The Spack-led defense started very slow and allowed Toledo to pick up too much yardage and too many points in the first quarter and a half.
>Painter's accuracy and touch were less-than-stellar at times.
>Dustin Keller received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for pointing to Purdue Pete as he scored a TD. Huh. Darius Walker pointed every fricking time he scored in his over-rated UND career and didn't get penalized once.
Alright, enough negativity- The Good
>Dorien Bryant battled through a not-so-great offensive game and shined on kickoff returns having a 91 yard return for a touchdown. This return included Bryant breaking a tackle (which I didn't think he could do) and showing a bit of the speed by beating two players who had the angle on him.
>Painter threw for four touchdowns, got a lot of receivers involved in the game and had ZERO interceptions. For those of you just tuning in, Painter led the nation in INTs last season. Painter also heeded one of my requests and overcame a slow start to end in a very solid manner.
>Greg Orton had an acrobatic catch for a TD and was solid all day. Selwyn Lymon also contributed well with a TD, a few catches and some EXCELLENT blocking.
>Purdue ran for 244 yards in a workman-like effort. Even true-freshman, Dan Dierking had a chance to carry the ball three times, averaging right around 12 yards/carry and scoring a TD. Sheets averaged around 8 (and had a tough TD run) and Taylor was his usual self averaging around 9/carry while carrying the lunch pail.
>Chris Summers recovered nicely on his second field goal and split the uprights with a 45-yarder. That was truly a great thing for me to see.
>Torri Williams continued his comeback with a few tackles and an interception.
>Jason Werner looked good and healthy having quite a few special teams tackles and a few at LB.
>Brock Spack's defense adjusted very well in the second quarter and all but completely stopped Toledo's offense for a quarter and a half.
>Purdue scored more points on Toledo at home than any other has during the Amstutz era.
>No Purdue players, coaches or personnel were eaten or bitten by Amstutz.
>Amstutz did not vomit during the game (he looked like he was going to a few times).
5 comments:
Fine work, sir. I look forward to this kind of insight given that I may be lucky to see half the games this year.
I saw the score in the first (?) quarter on the ESPN ticker while at dinner - it was 14 to 14 and I looked at my girlfriend and just shook my head. I then saw the final score on Sports Center later that night and shouted out loud, scaring her dog and making the neighbors wonder. That final score was not what I was expecting.
Good start indeed.
It's a good thing that Purdue didn't have Michigan on the schedule the last few years. They're really going to have to get wins like this whenever they can... I mean, now that they have Michigan back on the schedule.
Paul, was this before or after you proposed?
And I just BET you were screaming loud enough to wake the neighbors... you little vixen, you.
After. And nobody got any sleep, including the dog...
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