I have had the opportunity to read over the most recent Athlon's Pre-Season magazine and I think their analysis of Purdue is well-thought...that said, I think it has some flaws.
The first and most-glaring problem with it is they predict Purdue to finish 9th in the conference. They only have IU at 10th and Minnesota at 11th finishing below the Boilers. I'm not saying that it's not possible, but I just don't think it's likely. The magazine believes that Purdue's lack of returning starters is one of the reasons the Boilers will struggle. That said, Iowa has fewer returning starters, off of a pretty-bad '07 Hawkeye team, and Northwestern simply isn't that good of a team.
Purdue's lack of defensive backfield experience is going to hurt very badly, especially against teams with poised quarterbacks and good schemes...This could be one of the reason the magazine called Central Michigan a swing game...But my question for these writers is simple- Do you remember Central Michigan's defensive prowess? Curtis Painter does. The magazine also called IU a swing game in that they simply don't know who will win. Well, IU hasn't won in Ross Ade since before Tiller arrived. I'm pretty sure his going-away party will be a victory again.
Other points of interest in this issue of Athlon's includes the fact that they think UND will still finish lower in the nation than Purdue at 60th (Purdue is predicted at 54). My favorite part of the Notre Dame write-up is a quote that comes from Notre Dame's Senior fullback, Schwapp.
"Three-and-nine doesn't even sound right, especially in the same sentence as Notre Dame."
Bad news sir, it may not sound right, but it was...and your victories came against patsies. The good news is, you'll have plenty of those to fatten up on as San Diego State, Stanford, UNC, Navy and Syracuse are all on UND's schedule. The magazine calls the Purdue contest a swing game...I'd tend to agree since Purdue struggles so mightily in South Bend and neither team looks to be a world-beater coming into '08.We'll officially weigh in on how we think the season will go as it draws closer...Stay tuned! Fall can't come soon enough, for some of us.
18 comments:
Our returning player situation may be worrisome to a half-assed reviewer but when you consider who IS returning (RBs and Painter, for example) you realize sometimes it's not how many are returning, but WHO is returning.
Some of the criminals who have left -- and half-assers like ole Dorian -- are the definition of addition by subtraction.
Also, our friend over at LTP thinks the Cats can contend for the Big Ten this year... while he's not outright saying that, you can see he's quietly optimistic and thinks this is the time for their "every 3 or 4 year" scare-the-top-of-the-Big-Ten.
I agree with you, though.
So we turn into a WAC team and just try to score 50 points a game.
Speaking of Notre Dame, the Univsersity of Utah (my other alma mater) is trying to get on ND’s schedule for 2010. It would just be for that year and would be in South Bend. The Utah blogs (all two of them) are touting this as a big deal. I’ve pointed out that other than the TV time and maybe the money, how much does it help the program? Everyone says it helps recruiting, but I would think playing PAC10 and Big 12 teams would do the same since we are on the west side of the country.
Putting our bias against ND aside for a moment, would playing them in the next few years really help a mid-level program, or just be another “money” game?
For all the gamers out there, i was browsing the ncaa 09 website and found they have included purdue's alternate uniform.(http://www.easports.com/downloads/easports/ncaa09/images/PurdueAllBlack.jpg). Perhaps we will see more of the alternate uni this season too. UGA sure seemed to rally aronud their alternate black jerseys.
http://www.easports.com/downloads/easports/ncaa09/images/PurdueAllBlack.jpg
images/PurdueAllBlack.jpg
Athlon doesn't know what it's talking about. Don't worry Boilermakers, you'll be fine.
If the Boilers can commit to better conditioning before they report to summer camp and sticking with it through the season, I think the season could end in January. I believe our D is going to surprise some people - mostly Purdue fans.
As for Utah vs irish, playing ND is a nice payout, but the guaranteed national tv exposure is even better and there still is a prestige about playing ND, although 3-8 seasons don't help their cause or their tv ratings. Utah got alot of exposure not so long ago, deservedly so, and a Ute win in South Bend would give them more.
seriously, does it matter whether we're ninth in the conference as opposed to say, sixth? we're not gonna compete with the top teams - mediocrity is tiller's goal, remember! - so why get all riled up just because we're not picked to go to the motor city bowl?
this pretty much sums up my feelings on the 2008 boilermaker football team: i'm going back to purdue for grad school this fall, and despite getting season tickets every year while i was there for undergrad ('99-'03), i won't be getting them this year.
CMU and IU are NOT swing games. The swing games are Penn State, Michigan State, and Oregon. I could be wrong though.
About NCAA 09, those alternate black jerseys were in previous versions of the game.
Mo Boiler is a fair weather fan.
I too think the defense could surprise, but I want to see it first. I think we'll either go 1-3 or 4-0 in the non-conference season because of this. Central Michigan, Oregon, and ntore Dame are all beatable, but they can all just as easily beat us as well.
Matt, Mo is not a fair weather fan, he's logical. Clearly it causes him great heartache to watch gigantic turds being laid week after week by a bunch of talented players who simply haven't been prepared/motivated.
If Tiller can coach them to an upper-conference finish, it will be his best coaching job since about 2000.
cj, I hope your assessment's correct because I will be as surprised as anybody if the defense is formidable.
I'm confused (this in itself is not unusual). But what is "alternate" about black jerseys? We wear black at home and white on the road.... do you mean the all black combo? If so, then, yeah, I guess, but it's been worn before and not to very good results. I remember them in all black for the bucket game many moons ago (when IU wore all white -- ugh) and lost.
thanks for the props, dowd. you hit the nail on the head - tiller's the only reason i'm not going to care this year. i fully intend on getting tickets again in '09. as far as being fairweather, i wasn't one of those ticketholders who got the tix and then just went to the big games - i can count the number of games i missed in those five seasons on one hand. some of 'em had legit reasons - one was for sex, another was because my senior design professor was a fucking retard and scheduled a mandantory class trip the day of the notre dame game fall '03. (yeah, that went over well with a bunch of seniors.)
Mo, what type of design did you study?
J, the all-black unis have been worn and did have bad results...I vote not to see them this season.
i was a civil engineering major.
I pray that we end the season with a more respectable record than last year. I'm not saying we have to be undefeated but give us PU fans something to cheer for after these past few miserable seasons.
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