You make me wanna...Sit!

(This conversation comes up every few months...here's the latest installment.)

Sooooo...

I've always disliked the "SHOUT" tradition prior to the fourth quarter at football games. It's clearly a watered-down rip-off of Wisconsin's great tradition, "Jump Around." Many have surmised that I think that way because Purdue was out of so many games by the time the third quarter came around...but my disdain for this song goes back to its inception.

-Now, do I think it's a bad idea to have a song that gets fans into the game for the final quarter? Absolutely not.  It'll still be a rip-off of Wisconsin, but Wisconsin has it right- it's raucous at Camp Randall when that song plays.  It HAS NEVER been raucous at RA during "SHOUT" because the song is a fun song for people like my Mom to enjoy...nice sentiment. BUT, fans like Mama Boilerdowd (never used that one) aren't the ones that make Ross-Ade tough for opponents.

-Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater?
No way, I like babies...and throwing a tub full of bathwater would probably cause me to go into spasms.  I really like guys like Neil Armstrong, Drew Brees, Robbie Hummel, David Boudia, Gene Keady, etc. sticking their heads out of the box and getting involved; that's a great thing. The announcer was the thing that got me excited more than that damned song.

-Is now the time to move on?
Hells yes it is! Very few Purdue football fans have a good taste in their mouth about the Danny Hope Era. I believe the idea of "SHOUT" was an effort to try to invigorate a weary fanbase.  In 2006 it began...Basketball on grass was a memory, the autumn of Joe Tiller's time at Purdue was upon us and the product on the field had slipped.  Sure, the offense would still bludgeon bad teams, but during big games versus ranked teams, Purdue wasn't giving fans much to cheer for.

That tradition continued (with the exception of games v. aOSU, for some reason) during Hope's tenure...

New coach, new era...time to move forward.

Here are some of the songs that I think would be better than "SHOUT!" during the break between third and fourth quarter:

Chirp Chirp Chirp (Ball U recap)

It was kind of an odd day today at Ross-Ade for me. A friend of mine who is a BSU alum took me...so I sat with the enemy. He's a good dude, so it wasn't bothersome at all. In fact, I was more surprised about Purdue's first two fluid scoring drives than he was. He was pretty positive Purdue would win by 40 or so. I told him to just wait and he'd see some evidence of Purdue's youth, lack of focus and inconsistency. I was correct.

But, unlike last week, I feel a few positive steps were taken.

Solid
-I really enjoyed seeing a Purdue offense with good rhythm, slightly-faster pace and the ability to finish drives...that was all in the first quarter too.

-Carson Wiggs was crushing the ball well into the end zone for much of the day.

-Marve looked great, some might go as far as to say, marvelous, for much of the first half...all while battling stomach flu-like symptoms...according to GBI he threw up about 5 times before the game.

-Antavian Edison ran the ball very well...and we got to see why the coaches are so excited about his athleticism.

-OJ Ross had his first college TD...more coming.

-Ross, Siller and Edison were used in a variety of formations/positions due to Purdue's shockingly-thin RB corps.

-Nord lined Henry and Marve up in the same backfield finally. The possession yielded nothing, but might have been effective had Marve not been gimpy at that point.

-Kawaan Short was a handful and nearly made another very athletic interception at the line of scrimmage.

-Purdue had its first interception of the season (finally)...Werner pulled one down after a couple of dropped gimmies earlier in the season.

-Beckford had 11 tackles and was involved in a ton of plays.

-The defense was gang-tackling quite a bit.

-Rob Henry got some good reps, still doesn't look real comfortable throwing the ball...but ran a very limited playbook as well as could be expected.

-Purdue rotated a ton of defensive backs, specifically corners into the game.

-Purdue averaged a composite 4.4 yds on the ground and mixed up the runs pretty well (until late in the game).

-The Henry-to BSU defender-to Cortez Smith TD was one of the luckiest plays I've seen in a while...it padded the stats and put some much-needed (at the time) space between Purdue and BSU on the scoreboard.

-Kevin Pamphile returned from injury to play quite a few downs and looked pretty solid.

-BSU clearly game planned to avoid 94 as much as possible...it worked for much of the game. But, Kerrigan eventually had a sack, a couple nice run stops and slapped a BSU RB out of the way before knocking their first-string QB out of the game late in the second half.

Shaky
-Marve was injured yet again...this time, his surgically-repaired left knee. He tried to play through it, but his stats following the injury showed his lack of confidence in it...and during halftime warm-ups, he simply didn't step into his throws. During scrambles it looked like he simply couldn't slow himself down...he was pulled shortly after.

-Henry's accuracy as a passer was inconsistent.

-Marve's decision-making ability looked suspect again. He had a very athletic, but odd scramble in which he couldn't make his mind up about what to do before finally throwing an incomplete pass. The play in which he tweaked his knee was his call...and a lousy one at that.

-Marve missed on two long passes...one by quite a bit. This is a large hole in Purdue's offense that needs to be figured out.

-Webster and Wiggs combined for two of the worst punts, on two consecutive possessions that I've seen in a while- Webster shanked left, Wiggs shanked right.

-On one of Wiggs booming kickoffs, the coverage seemingly took a play off and allowed a 60 yard return. Wiggs along with someone else (can't remember who now) forced the BSU returner out of bounds.

-The offense seemingly-fell asleep for the middle two quarters as they couldn't do much of anything. BSU was killing Purdue in the field position battle at that point...but couldn't capitalize due to poor field goal kicking (two missed).

-Ball State had way too much success running the ball up the middle in the second half.

-Injuries continue to mount:
RB- Bolden out for season, Carlos still out with stress fracture, ATM out with turf toe, Dierking limited with bruised ribs
WR- K. Smith out for season
QB- Marve left shoulder stinger (WIU), left knee minor sprain (BSU)
DT- Brandon Taylor out (still not sure of injury)

-Gotta say it- I hated seeing Robinson warming up on the sidelines after Marve went down...I really want this guy to RS, as I'm sure everyone else does.

-They showed the Keith Smith "Boilermaker" commercial a few times during the game on the jumbotron...and the second time, showed Smith in sweats on the sidelines right after it. That made me kinda sad to see it.

Damn
Old, crotchety Purdue fans still drive me nuts.

I sat in Section 128 today and the woman next to me didn't like all of the noise I was making. That never bothers me. But, after Evans dropped an INT late in the first half, I yelled, "Come on, Al, catch the frickin' ball." Yes, I said frickin'. She turned to me and said, my language was horrible and that this was supposed to be a family atmosphere. Huh?

I have two kids...they've heard the word frickin' before. Pretty sure that's not a dirty word.

Later, I said "damn". She chastised me again. I apologized for that word and begged her to actually cheer for one, just one play. She of course didn't...but did stand for the high school bands (not the fight song, mind you) and "Shout". Then left shortly after.

Boo. Boo to everyone in the stadium who refuses to cheer for the football team, but gets excited about that milquetoast tradition between the third and fourth quarters. Booooooo to every Purdue fan who would rather tell another Boiler to be quiet rather than cheer themselves. You guys are why Purdue fans are perpetually mocked. You clowns are why Purdue only has a homefield advantage near the student section.

Do everyone a favor: Stay at home for the rest of the season.

10,000 good fans are better than 60,000 cardboard cut-outs.

Mail call!

It's mailbag time here at BS. Just wanted to share a couple because they're awesome.

First up, Matt from Des Moines, Iowa checks in (good to see they have Internet in Iowa now).

I'm an '07 grad living and working in Des Moines. Being continuously surrounded by iowa fans makes me feel like each day I'm reliving the scene from 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" where the Jones boys sneak into the Nazi rally and Sr. says to Jr. "We're strangers in an unholy land."

Seriously, one of the most unknown things about the Big Ten is how freaking arrogant and aggressive most iowa fans are. They are constantly out to put down anyone from any other school. They act like they have this amazing football team, when really they have Kirk Ferentz getting paid millions of dollars to manage a work-release program for the local jail. I can't stand it.

Charlie Weis eats babies. Go Boilers!

You're right, I never really thought about that. It's cute that Iowa fans think their team is good. It's also telling that nobody outside of Iowa is aware of this and the reason, of course, is that everyone outside of Iowa realizes Iowa isn't a football powerhouse. Oh, and Matt, Charlie Weis eats babies? Seriously? Come on, everyone knows... Charlie Weis eats everything.

Next up is Kristin who writes:

Please tell me someone somewhere has called for the end of the "Shout" tradition between the 3rd and 4th quarters. You know, the time when very rarely is there anything to shout about? Just offering that up as a topic of discussion. I literally leave the stands every game near the end of the third just so I don't have to endure the horror that is "Shout". Maybe no one else is quite as passionate about it. But while we are talking change I can hope for it's demise.

So we're not the only ones complaining about Shout. Hear that, Ross-Ade music people?

I Think This Guy Was Hiding In Our Car Last Saturday

Whenever the BS staff gets together, you just know brilliant ideas abound. So when we were alerted to this letter to the Exponent by reader Ross (proprieter of Bad Idea Blue Jeans), it was more than a little interesting. Letter-writer Jason Tindall, take it away:

Please for the love of true traditions stop playing "Shout." We might as well call it "Reach" for the underwhelming and largely silent reaction it stirs in the stadium. "Shout" is actually a pathetic rip-off of two other traditions: Wisconsin's playing of "Jump Around" and the Chicago Cubs' celebrity-introduced seventh inning stretch. This "tradition" peaked with last year's return visit from Drew Brees and hit rock bottom with this week's hackneyed spell-a-thon by Sameer Mishra.

I have no problem trying to get folks out of their seats, dancing, and making noise. Why not do it with the Quad City DJ's "C'mon Ride the Train"? It's at least more fitting and noise-worthy than "Shout."

We're fairly certain Jason wasn't holed up in the back of the Boilerdowdmobile or hiding in his basement that night, but we all discussed the very topic of "Shout" and possible replacements.

Not that discussing "Shout" and its suckiness doesn't come up pretty frequently... but we even got into a discussion about how if we're going to play a non-current song as a way to "make it our own" and get everyone up, why not be semi-original and play something like "Come on Ride It" by the Quad City DJs? It's goofy and dorky, but hey, these are a bunch of white people we're talking about here. Goofy and dorky would be funny because it would be our own thing. And what team would a train-related song apply more to than the Boilermakers?

The good thing here is that other people are noticing the lackluster effort of, well, everything, at Boiler home games right now. We need to be more energetic and more original. And, oh yeah, the team should play better, too.

Shout! (it stinks!)

I'm glad some of you like the new tradition of "Shout!"...Sure, it's a crappy, soft, ultra-soulless derivative of "Jump Around" at UW, but oh well. Here's what I see everytime I see people doing "Shout!":

That is awesome!
(That's Purdue's President France Cordova bringin' it!)


By the way, here's a picture of the rabbit that got on the field during Saturday's contest (reminded me very much of the same thing that happened back in '93, I believe).


Now, here's a picture of the two bunny costumes in the student section (I don't know why, but I found this very funny).