At the intersection of Purdue and Notre Dame

First appeared on October 5th, 2011
in The Lebanon Reporter

Webster’s defines hype as “something that will never live up to expectations”, or at least it should. It would seem that, as a rule, the more hype something gets the worse it tends to be. Coke Zero, Lethal Weapon II, sixth grade, these things were no different, or arguably better, than their predecessors.

As Americans we’ve grown accustomed to making things bigger and better. When the Russians sent a man into orbit, we sent one to the moon. When Japan bombed our naval base at Pearl Harbor we sent the Fat Man and Little Boy to level two of their cities. And when there wasn’t enough grease and cholesterol in our fast food we invented supersizing.

But perhaps there exists those things which we cannot improve upon. Innovations engineers actually perfected the first time, or things even evolution itself cannot make better. I would offer toilet seats, the Oreo cookie and Notre Dame Football all fall into this category.

Every year we hear Notre Dame will be in the BCS picture. Every year they are supposed to return to the green pastures that disturbingly strange looking Leprechaun mascot/guy and Irish fans once frolicked through together with regularity. But every year since Lou left town they’ve done nothing but prove themselves unworthy of such hype. Maybe we’re seeing the best Notre Dame today’s college football can give us.

Three straight Irish wins was all the more reason for Head Coach Brian Kelly to see Purdue as the ultimate trap game. On the other side of Saturday night’s match up was a Boilermaker team whose performance left fans scratching heads while wondering if Head Coach Danny Hope had a mere 2 minutes to prepare for the Irish instead of the 2 weeks he actually had.

With 2 weeks to prepare and an upset of an in-state rival riding on the game, the best Purdue could come up with was an interception on the first play from scrimmage and no plan whatsoever for covering Michael Floyd.

Pittsburgh had success negating Floyd two weeks ago, but apparently Danny Hope doesn’t watch game tape, or perhaps he lives in the one corner of the globe that can’t pull down an ABC affiliate. Either way, the Boilermakers clearly failed in the “stopping Michael Floyd” department (12 catches, 137 yards 1 touchdown).
So with the Irish surging, the Boilers remain the black and gold question mark they’ve been since Hope came to town. We heard all preseason about Ricardo Allen being the most talented defensive back to hit West Lafayette since Rod Woodson, and yet Saturday night Michael Floyd made Allen look nothing more than pedestrian.

We heard the book on Caleb TerBush was that, while he doesn’t make the big plays, he also doesn’t make mistakes that get you beat. Then he goes out and throws a pick on the first play from scrimmage. We were also told that a key strength for TerBush was his feet and yet we didn’t see his number called very much at all.

Saturday night was one of two things. Either it was an aberration for Purdue and they have the talent to stay competitive with Notre Dame, or we are seeing two programs heading in opposite directions. After a string of bowl berths left Purdue football fans thirsty for more they were quick to send Joe Tiller packing for his Wyoming ranch. Yet if Tiller is any guide (and he really has to be), in his 3rd year Hope should be bringing more to West Lafayette; more talent, more wins, more excitement- in short more hype.

© 2011 Eric Walker Williams