Know Your Foe: Purdue 2012

Saturday marks the start of Big Ten play for Michigan which heads to West Lafayette to take on Purdue.  The 2-2 Wolverines are coming off a bye week following the debacle in South Bend.  This will be the 58th meeting between the two schools, with Michigan holding a 43-14 advantage in the series.  Last year, U-M stomped all over the Boilermakers, 36-14.  But those are the facts you can find anywhere.  Below is the stuff you didn't know in another death-defying edition of Know Your Foe.

"Hey, IU -- blow me!"

History: Purdue was founded as a land grant college on May 6, 1869 when the Indiana General Assembly accepted a $150K donation and 100 acres of land from Lafayette businessman John Purdue to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture in his name. But it wasn’t just the Morrill Act and Purdue's love of education that got the school started. It was spite. Purdue had been denied a professorship at Indiana University. So to help Indiana students have an alternative to the school in Bloomington, Purdue donated the money and land to help start the school that would bear his name.  Classes first began at Purdue on September 16, 1874 with 39 students. Purdue issued its first degree, not surprisingly a Bachelor of Science, in 1875.

As a side note, Mr. Purdue’s is buried on campus near the Union Building and not, as many think, inside coach Danny Hope's mustache.

Location: West Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue is the flagship of the six campuses within the Purdue University System, one of the largest university systems in the United States. It is the most densely populated city in Indiana and situated in Tippecanoe County about 65 miles northwest of Indianapolis. The place is named in honor of General Lafayette, a French military hero who fought with the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Can't be all bad in WL, right?

While former MZone cohort Andy claimed in a previous KYF to have known some nice looking Purdue grads, he also noted this in no place to go looking for girls. According to the 2010 US Census, there are 13,337 males age 20-24 in WL with only 9,337 females.  This depressing stat (for dudes at least) can be explained by Purdue's strong academic programs in male-dominated fields such as engineering.  Whatever the reason, the MZone hereby motions to rename West Lafayette as Sausage, Indiana.

Nickname: Boilermakers.  The nickname dates back to 1891 when a local reporter referred to the football team as “Boiler Makers” following a 44-0 whitewash of Wabash College. The title of the story was called “Slaughter of Innocents” (which is not Purdue's fight song, no matter what their football history may imply). The next year the student newspaper (still called the Exponent) began using the name and it stuck. As far as nicknames go, this one is a true original. Purdue is the only college known as the Boilermakers.

Before becoming the Boilermakers, Purdue’s sports teams had a bunch of silly industrial/farming names, including the surreal “Clod Mashers and Lunch Punishers from the wilds of Tippecanoe County”. Other names were the Corn Huskers, Rail Splitters, Haymakers, LogHaulers, Blacksmiths, Sluggers, Hayseeds, Pumpkin-shuckers and my personal favorite: Cornfield Sailors...not that there's anything wrong with that.

Kiddie ride? Nope. Purdue's mascot

Mascot: The Boilermaker Special has been the official mascot of Purdue University since 1940. It essentially is a Victorian-era railroad locomotive built on a truck chassis. The Special was originally designed to demonstrate Purdue's engineering programs. It is "street legal" and can be driven on expressways at a top speed of 65mph and it attends all of Purdue’s football games home & away. Hats bearing the logos of defeated opponents are attached to the Boilermaker Special's cow-catcher (which leaves it pretty empty some years). There is a smaller version (called the X-Tra) for indoor events. The Special is operated, maintained, and funded by the unfortunately named Purdue Reamer Club.

Just to be confusing, the official mascot of Purdue athletics since 1940 has been Purdue Pete. He began as a logo for the campus bookstore. He made his first physical appearance as the athletics mascot at a pep rally in 1956. Pete has lost his head several times, literally. They lost his original paper-mache head in 1962 on the way back from Iowa City. The head was in the back of the Boilermaker Special when a strong gust of wind blew it out into the road. The crew stopped the Special and searched for hours for the head without any luck. The only thing they found was little piece of the shoulder pad.

About the only think missing from Purdue Pete, in our opinion, is a super 'stache in honor of the apparent coaching pre-req at PU.

Colors/Logo/Helmet: In 1887 Purdue University adopted its school colors, Old Gold and Black. These distinctive colors were inspired by the brass and iron found on the steam engine Lafayette that passed through the state (OK, we get it -- you like trains). Unlike Big Ten teams Iowa and Minnesota, the Purdue gold is actually gold, not yellow.

They use a “forward moving P,” as their primary logo. This logo is nice clean and basic. They have also used various versions of a train engine as an alternative logo. Again, it is a uniquely Purdue symbol and there is no confusing it with any other college logo.


Considering they have not had a ton of success as a football program, they have a pretty stable helmet history. In the early 1950’s Purdue’s helmets looked a little bit like the Michigan helmets without the wings. They went to a “numbers on the side” period in the 1960’s until they went with the current gold with a black P in the early 1970’s. However, for some reason during the last two years of the Fred Akers era they had a two-year fling with black helmets (1989 and 1990).

When Drew Brees led Purdue to the 2001 Rose Bowl, they wore a special “Rose Bowl” version of the helmet. I think it looked great because it combined the classic Purdue style with the very special (and rare, as it only happened once before in '67) occasion of the Rose Bowl visit.

Fight Song Hail Purdue! is the official fight song of Purdue University. The lyrics were written by James Morrison, to the tune set by Edward Wotawa in 1913. The song was initially titled "Purdue War Song" and was dedicated to the Varsity Glee Club, of whom Wotawa was a member.  The lyrics also talk about friendship, and time spent together, so it starts to devolve into a poem a guy would write to a girlfriend he just dumped, but overall a solid fight song.


Hail Purdue
To your call once more we rally,
Alma Mater, hear our praise;
Where the Wabash spreads its valley,
Filled with joy our voices raise.
From the skies in swelling echoes
Come the cheers that tell the tale,
Of your vic'tries and your heroes,
Hail Purdue! We sing all hail!

Hail, hail to old Purdue!
All hail to our old gold and black!
Hail, hail to old Purdue!
Our friendship may she never lack,
Ever grateful ever true,
Thus we raise our song anew,†
Of the days we've spent with you,
All hail our own Purdue.

When in after years we're turning,
Alma Mater, back to you,
May our hearts with love be yearning,
For the scenes of old Purdue.
Back among your pathways winding
Let us seek what lies before,
Fondest hopes and aims e'er finding,
While we sing of days of yore.


Academics: The reputation of Purdue as a top engineering school is well known. It was the first university in America to award an aviation engineering degree under the direction of the Wright brothers. Purdue was the first university in the country to offer college credit for flight training, and the first to offer a degree in aviation. Over the last ten years, Purdue has awarded more aerospace engineering degree than any other school, and awards more engineering degrees to women than any college in the country. It’s known as the cradle of astronauts, and has one of the largest international student populations of any public university in the U.S.

According to the latest US News and World Reports rankings, Purdue comes in #65 (down from #62 last year).  Not exactly Michigan, but more importantly to John Purdue -- higher ranked than Indiana!

Athletics: Purdue was a charter member of the Big Ten and played a central role in its creation. They have an intense rivalry with Indiana in all sports. The Boilermakers battle the Hoosiers on the football field each year to win the Old Oaken Bucket. Purdue leads the series by a wide margin. Found on a farm in southern Indiana, the oaken bucket is one of the oldest football trophies in the nation. The winner of game gets to add a bronze "P" or "I" chain link and keep the trophy until the next face-off. Ironically, the first competition in 1925 led to a 0-0 tie, resulting in the first link on the chain being an "IP."

It is good that they battle so hard with Indiana, because in over 100 years of Big Ten football the Boilermakers haven’t really battled anyone else. They have won only one non-shared conference championship (1929) and have only shared of seven others. Only two of those co-championships have taken place in the last 55 years.

But in basketball it is a different story -- Boilermaker Basketball teams have won more Big Ten Championships than any other conference school, with 27 (Men 21 and Women 6). The guys have been to two Final Fours and the ladies three. The Purdue Women won the NCAA title 1999 while the Men were voted NCAA Champs in 1932 (before the NCAA tourney).

The rest of the Boilermakers athletic teams are just plain weak. In this century, they’ve only won a handful of Big Ten titles. They show no historical conference dominance in any sport. Their only other national championships have come in golf (1961 Mens and 2010 Ladies).

Purdue's Popcorn Engineer

Famous alums: Purdue alumni have headed corporations, held federal offices, founded television networks, and flown through space. Purdue’s distinguished faculty have won Nobel prizes, solved long-standing riddles in science, headed government agencies, and received countless awards. Famous Purdue people include: Russell Games Slayter, inventor of fiberglass; Harold Gray, creator of Little Orphan Annie; George Peppard, movie actor; Orville Redenbacher, popcorn king; and Ruth Siems, inventor of stove top stuffing. They have a nice list of famous athletes including legendary basketball coach John Wooden; NFL Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram; and Pro Bowl QBs Drew Brees, Len Dawson, and Bob (you can call me Brian's Dad) Griese. I would be remiss without mentioning that former Lions QB and current SEC lobbyist Gary Danielson went to Purdue. It is sad to see that a guy that went to high school in Michigan and attended a Big Ten School can be such a blow-hard against his midwestern football roots.

As I mentioned above, Purdue is known as the "Cradle of Astronauts". They have graduated 22 NASA astronauts, including the first and last men to walk on the moon. Pretty impressive. The most recognizable Purdue Space Man is Neil Armstrong. So yes, Purdue beats Michigan in the race to space -- but they have no US Presidents.  White House, Bitches!

The Game:  Is Purdue any good?  Who knows.  The Boilermakers are about as much of a riddle as Michigan.  At 3-1, they beat three corpses in Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Michigan and Marshall while losing a heartbreaker to ND in South Bend on a last second field goal.  What does that tell KYF?  Not much.  If the game was at  home, I think I'd feel very confident picking Michigan for that reason alone.  But Michigan's offensive road woes under Hoke/Borges are officially now just this side of alarming (as well as their 2-4 record away from the Big House).  Yet I can't believe the Denard I saw in South Bend is the one who is going to finish out his career at Michigan.  He's not only a better QB than that, but a better competitor than that.  He and the team bounce back and keep our Rose Bowl hopes alive, but it won't be easy.

Michigan - 31
Purdue - 24

MZone Autopsy: Dissecting the Purdue Game

Folks, this is going to be a lot more enjoyable than our first "autopsy" feature when we were forced to cut open the corpse found buried in plastic bags outside Spartan Stadium.  

MZONE AUTOPSY REPORT: Purdue

1.  During the previous three seasons, last weekend's Purdue game is one U-M would have probably lost.  One of those dreaded "second half of the season" games that revealed Michigan to be imploding rather than improving.

But not this time.  Not this year.

Michigan stomped on an inferior opponent the way it should have, both defensively and offensively.  It was -  dare I say - like old times.  In talking to my former MZone cohort Benny yesterday, he mentioned that we still don't know how good Michigan is because we haven't beaten any good teams (ND falls into a "maybe" depending on which weekend we're talking about).  And while I agreed with him, I said the biggest difference is that, while we may indeed not be great team, Michigan is playing football at a level now that has the Wolverines beating the teams they're supposed to.  The teams Michigan used to routinely pound, with every game not being a coin flip.

Yes, I'm so damn scarred by the previous three seasons that, after Purdue's initial drive, I felt a flash of deja vu all over again.  But Michigan stayed the course and eventually put Purdue away, pretty much by halftime and certainly before the 3rd quarter was over.

How refreshing.

While we probably won't go 4-0 to end the season, I can honestly say I wouldn't be surprised if we did.  And, unlike years past (okay, three of them), I would be very surprised if we went 0-4.

2.  So that's what a running game looks like.  Boy, was it beautiful to see a Michigan player not named Denard tear up the opposition's defense on the ground.  RB Fitz Toussaint's 170 yard day (59 of it coming on a beautiful TD run in the third quarter) is the sort of output that U-M fans used to be used to.  If the Wolverines can make this a regular thing - and do it against high quality teams - look out.  It will take a hell of a load off of Denard.  Put it this way, if the Maize and Blue can establish this sort of ground game on a weekly basis, it's going to be fun to watch folks notice other good things which will happen as a result.  Like, "Wow, I didn't know Denard was such a good passer!"  Funny how that works.

3.  For the first time this season, injuries are a concern for the Wolverines.  Up until this point, Michigan has been beyond blessed in the health department.  Not anymore.  Safety Jordon Kovacs missed the game and is probably out for Iowa with a knee injury.  Left guard Ricky Barnum re-injured his ankle and had to leave the game.  And left tackle Taylor Lewan had to miss part of the game with what could be a knee injury.  With Michigan's lack of depth and four tough closing games, it's not good.  But as Coach Hoke said about the injuries, "That's football."

4.  The "Rocket Man" entrance of the game ball was cool as hell.



About the only negative was that this was the loudest thing inside The Big House on Saturday.  I'm actually mildly surprised nobody yelled "down in front" at the guy as he flew past.

5.  Shame on the students.  Where the hell were you?!  You can see it in the "Rocket Man" video above as well as many of the YouTube vids posted: the students simply didn't show up.  No, I'm not talking "late arriving," I mean the student section NEVER FILLED UP (the pink cancer "M" students were trying to form had holes in it the entire game).  Not gonna put up much about this now because I think this deserves its own post.  But there is no excuse and it's just sad. 

6. I think Michigan won twice yesterday: By beating Purdue and hearing about Sparty losing to Nebraska.

7. A safety?! You remember what those are, don't you?  Can you believe it had been EIGHT YEARS since U-M's defense last recorded one (vs. Houston in 2003).  I don't want to say U-M fans are shocked to see such things after Gerg and the last three years, but check out the fan video of the safety below.  There was less pandemonium by the dude working the camera in CLOVERFIELD when he was being chased by the giant monster.



8. Man, I really enjoy beating Danny Hope. Especially since we probably don't have that many more years to do it.

Know Your Foe - Purdue 2011

Saturday marks Michigan's homecoming game as the 6-1 Wolverines welcome Purdue to The Big House.  This will be the 57th meeting between the two schools, with Michigan winning last year's contest, 27-16.  But those are the facts you can find anywhere.  Below is the stuff you didn't know in another death-defying edition of Know Your Foe.

"Hey, IU -- blow me!"

History: Purdue was founded as a land grant college on May 6, 1869 when the Indiana General Assembly accepted a $150K donation and 100 acres of land from Lafayette businessman John Purdue to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture in his name. But it wasn’t just the Morrill Act and Purdue's love of education that got the school started. It was spite. Purdue had been denied a professorship at Indiana University. So to help Indiana students have an alternative to the school in Bloomington, Purdue donated the money and land to help start the school that would bear his name.  Classes first began at Purdue on September 16, 1874 with 39 students. Purdue issued its first degree, not surprisingly a Bachelor of Science, in 1875.

As a side note, Mr. Purdue’s is buried on campus near the Union Building, which is surprising since we at the MZone thought it was hidden inside that giant drum they wheel around the football field.

Location: West Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue is the flagship of the six campuses within the Purdue University System, one of the largest university systems in the United States. It is situated in Tippecanoe County about 65 miles northwest of Indianapolis. The place is named in honor of General Lafayette, a French military hero who fought with the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Can't be all bad in WL, right?

While Andy claimed in a previous KYF to have known some nice looking Purdue grads, he also noted this in no place to go looking for girls. According to the 2000 US Census, for every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 137.2 males in West Lafayette.  This unusual distribution can be explained by Purdue's strong academic programs in male-dominated fields such as engineering.  Whatever the reason, the MZone hereby motions to rename West Lafayette as Sausage, Indiana.

Nickname: Boilermakers.  The nickname dates back to 1891 when a local reporter referred to the football team as “Boiler Makers” following a 44-0 whitewash of Wabash College. The title of the story was called “Slaughter of Innocents” (which is an apt description of the previous three years of Michigan Football). The next year the student newspaper (still called the Exponent) began using the name and it stuck. As far as nicknames go, this one is a true original. Purdue is the only college known as the Boilermakers.

Before becoming the Boilermakers, Purdue’s sports teams had a bunch of silly industrial/farming names, including the surreal “Clod Mashers and Lunch Punishers from the wilds of Tippecanoe County”. Other names were the Corn Huskers, Rail Splitters, Haymakers, LogHaulers, Blacksmiths, Sluggers, Hayseeds, Pumpkin-shuckers and my personal favorite: Cornfield Sailors...not that there's anything wrong with that.

Kiddie ride? Nope. Purdue's mascot

Mascot: The Boilermaker Special has been the official mascot of Purdue University since 1940. It essentially is a Victorian-era railroad locomotive built on a truck chassis. The Special was originally designed to demonstrate Purdue's engineering programs. It is "street legal" and can be driven on expressways at a top speed of 65mph and it attends all of Purdue’s football games home & away. Hats bearing the logos of defeated opponents are attached to the Boilermaker Special's cow-catcher (which leaves it pretty empty some years). There is a smaller version (called the X-Tra) for indoor events. The Special is operated, maintained, and funded by the unfortunately named Purdue Reamer Club.

Just to be confusing, the official mascot of Purdue athletics since 1940 has been Purdue Pete. He began as a logo for the campus bookstore. He made his first physical appearance as the athletics mascot at a pep rally in 1956. Pete has lost his head several times, literally. They lost his original paper-mache head in 1962 on the way back from Iowa City. The head was in the back of the Boilermaker Special when a strong gust of wind blew it out into the road. The crew stopped the Special and searched for hours for the head without any luck. The only thing they found was little piece of the shoulder pad.

About the only think missing from Purdue Pete, in our opinion, is a super 'stache in honor of the apparent coaching pre-req at PU.

Colors/Logo/Helmet: In 1887 Purdue University adopted its school colors, Old Gold and Black. These distinctive colors were inspired by the brass and iron found on the steam engine Lafayette that passed through the state (OK, we get it -- you like trains). Unlike Big Ten teams Iowa and Minnesota, the Purdue gold is actually gold, not yellow.

They use a “forward moving P,” as their primary logo. This logo is nice clean and basic. They have also used various versions of a train engine as an alternative logo. Again, it is a uniquely Purdue symbol and there is no confusing it with any other college logo.


Considering they have not had a ton of success as a football program, they have a pretty stable helmet history. In the early 1950’s Purdue’s helmets looked a little bit like the Michigan helmets without the wings. They went to a “numbers on the side” period in the 1960’s until they went with the current gold with a black P in the early 1970’s. However, for some reason during the last two years of the Fred Akers era they had a two-year fling with black helmets (1989 and 1990).

When Drew Brees led Purdue to the 2001 Rose Bowl, they wore a special “Rose Bowl” version of the helmet. I think it looked great because it combined the classic Purdue style with the very special (and rare, as it only happened once before in '67) occasion of the Rose Bowl visit.

Fight Song Hail Purdue! is the official fight song of Purdue University. The lyrics were written by James Morrison, to the tune set by Edward Wotawa in 1913. The song was initially titled "Purdue War Song" and was dedicated to the Varsity Glee Club, of whom Wotawa was a member.  The lyrics also talk about friendship, and time spent together, so it starts to devolve into a poem a guy would write to a girlfriend he just dumped, but overall a solid fight song.



Hail Purdue
To your call once more we rally,
Alma Mater, hear our praise;
Where the Wabash spreads its valley,
Filled with joy our voices raise.
From the skies in swelling echoes
Come the cheers that tell the tale,
Of your vic'tries and your heroes,
Hail Purdue! We sing all hail!

Hail, hail to old Purdue!
All hail to our old gold and black!
Hail, hail to old Purdue!
Our friendship may she never lack,
Ever grateful ever true,
Thus we raise our song anew,†
Of the days we've spent with you,
All hail our own Purdue.

When in after years we're turning,
Alma Mater, back to you,
May our hearts with love be yearning,
For the scenes of old Purdue.
Back among your pathways winding
Let us seek what lies before,
Fondest hopes and aims e'er finding,
While we sing of days of yore.


Academics: The reputation of Purdue as a top engineering school is well known. It was the first university in America to award an aviation engineering degree under the direction of the Wright brothers. Purdue was the first university in the country to offer college credit for flight training, and the first to offer a degree in aviation. Over the last ten years, Purdue has awarded more aerospace engineering degree than any other school, and awards more engineering degrees to women than any college in the country. It’s known as the cradle of astronauts, and has one of the largest international student populations of any public university in the U.S.

According to the latest US News and World Reports rankings, Purdue comes in #62.  Not exactly Michigan, but more importantly to John Purdue -- higher ranked than Indiana!

Athletics: Purdue was a charter member of the Big Ten and played a central role in its creation. They have an intense rivalry with Indiana in all sports. The Boilermakers battle the Hoosiers on the football field each year to win the Old Oaken Bucket. Purdue leads the series by a wide margin. Found on a farm in southern Indiana, the oaken bucket is one of the oldest football trophies in the nation. The winner of game gets to add a bronze "P" or "I" chain link and keep the trophy until the next face-off. Ironically, the first competition in 1925 led to a 0-0 tie, resulting in the first link on the chain being an "IP."

It is good that they battle so hard with Indiana, because in over 100 years of Big Ten football the Boilermakers haven’t really battled anyone else. They have won only one non-shared conference championship (1929) and have only shared of seven others. Only two of those co-championships have taken place in the last 55 years.

But in basketball it is a different story -- Boilermaker Basketball teams have won more Big Ten Championships than any other conference school, with 27 (Men 21 and Women 6). The guys have been to two Final Fours and the ladies three. The Purdue Women won the NCAA title 1999 while the Men were voted NCAA Champs in 1932 (before the NCAA tourney).

The rest of the Boilermakers athletic teams are just plain weak. In this century, they’ve only won a handful of Big Ten titles. They show no historical conference dominance in any sport. Their only other national championships have come in golf (1961 Mens and 2010 Ladies).

Purdue's Popcorn Engineer

Famous alums: Purdue alumni have headed corporations, held federal offices, founded television networks, and flown through space. Purdue’s distinguished faculty have won Nobel prizes, solved long-standing riddles in science, headed government agencies, and received countless awards. Famous Purdue people include: Russell Games Slayter, inventor of fiberglass; Harold Gray, creator of Little Orphan Annie; George Peppard, movie actor; Orville Redenbacher, popcorn king; and Ruth Siems, inventor of stove top stuffing. They have a nice list of famous athletes including legendary basketball coach John Wooden; NFL Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram; and Pro Bowl QBs Drew Brees, Len Dawson, and Bob (you can call me Brian's Dad) Griese. I would be remiss without mentioning that former Lions QB and current SEC lobbyist Gary Danielson went to Purdue. It is sad to see that a guy that went to high school in Michigan and attended a Big Ten School can be such a blow-hard against his midwestern football roots.

As I mentioned above, Purdue is known as the "Cradle of Astronauts". They have graduated 22 NASA astronauts, including the first and last men to walk on the moon. Pretty impressive. The most recognizable Purdue Space Man is Neil Armstrong. So yes, Purdue beats Michigan in the race to space -- but they have no US Presidents.  White House, Bitches!

The Game:  The previous two years, this is the point at which the bottom begins to fall out of the Michigan season: quick start, crappy ending.  But I just can't believe Brady's Boys will let that happen.  I can't.  Not again.  Not on homecoming.  Against a Danny Hope-coached team.

This game will be no cakewalk as Purdue stepped up and smacked Illinois last weekend on the road.  But that's more of a Zooker issue that something that can be attributed to Purdue props.

No, I think MSU was not the "beginning of the end," but rather just a stumble.  And tomorrow Denard has his best game of the season.

Michigan - 34
Purdue - 24

Danny Hope's Next Job

As our friend Michigan Sports Girl of @SupportBradyHoke pointed out, apparently a super 'stache must be part of the job description for the Purdue head coaching job (which makes them look like a motorcycle cop, giant douchebag, or both).

Here's current coach Danny Hope...

"Step out of the vehicle please, ma'am."

...Who replaced Joe Tiller...

"He said, Step out of the vehicle.
Don't make me tase you!"

...Who was often mistaken for actor Wilford Brimley...

This is NOT Joe Tiller, though Purdue teams often play
like the cast of COCOON

...But never Sam Elliot from The Big Lebowski...

"Way out west - West Lafayette,
actually -  there was this coach..."

But let's face it, the Purdue head coaching job isn't exactly a long-term employment opportunity.  So the MZone brain trust got together to bat around some suggestions for Hope when the time comes for his inevitable post-Boilermaker job search.  Let's face it, with his look, he should have no problem landing one of the jobs below.


MOTORCYCLE COP

As mentioned above, this really is the obvious choice.  But it goes both ways.

Danny Hope's next job...or Purdue's next coach?

70s PORN STAR

Sure, the time travel part might be tough. But with Hope's look, it might be worth overcoming the technical difficulties.

"Wanna see my 4-4 stack?"

FORMER PRESIDENT TEDDY ROOSEVELT

Again, there are the time travel issues. But if Hope's only "attribute" is the 'stache - thus ruling out the 70s porn star - might be worth a shot.

...Especially when you consider that Joe Tiller pulled a SOMEWHERE IN TIME and is currently William Howard Taft in an alternate reality...

FOX NEWS "REPORTER" JOHN STOSSEL

Might be some overlap here with the 70s Porn Star.

"Is that a candle?  You tell me."

So, did we forget anything?  Leave us your suggestion for Danny Hope's post-Purdue job in the comments section.

Purdue - Big 10 bottom dweller and offensive enigma?

The previews are coming in and they are grim. The Quad ranks the Boilermakers a preseason 94th, while Dr Saturday ponders the likelihood of a return to pre-Tiller ineptitude. As my previous forays evidence, Purdue, or at least its offense, is a special subject for me, as I learned a lot about the passing game, the one-back, and offense in general from the spread-show that Tiller brought to West Lafayette. The spread’s whole history is in many ways perfectly captured by Joe Tiller’s Big 10 tenure: from its blockbuster beginnings as the perfect underdog offense, which allowed the little guy to compete with the big dog, to me-too offense that everyone had to run, to finally complete saturation, where the spread – or at least the pure, pass-first version as was first developed – might actually help seal the fate of the little guy who tries to isolate inferior receivers against superior defensive backs (and hence also inferior linemen versus superior defensive linemen and linebackers).

That worry would seem particularly acute for Purdue, considering it lost its quarterback, runningback, and top two receivers, which is especially acute considering Purdue had already lost its top two receivers from the year before that as well, in Dorien Bryant and Dustin Keller, now tight-end with the New York Jets. So the cupboard looks bare. Yet I speculated on what Purdue’s new “mystery offense” might look like under new offensive coordinator, calling it “NFL-esque” and even going so far as to say that Purdue’s spread offense days were “likely over.”

I may have spoken too soon, though the signals are mixed. Blogs for the Orlando Sun Sentinel, in reporting on Nord’s leaving the Florida Atlantic staff where he had worked for Howard Schnellenberger (and had worked for Schnellenberger for decades, going back to their time together at Louisville), assured its readers that Nord’s departure did not mean that FAU would become a spread team: “Note: The offense will remain the same. Howard is not about to join the charge to the spread. And as was shown Saturday night, his offense can roll through defenses and put up points just like the spread can.” This implies that he did not run a spread offense at FAU.

Similarly, the reports are that Nord is pleased with the development of his tight-ends, and looks to feature them at Purdue. Now, tight-ends and the spread are not mutually exclusive, but such a heavy focus is usually a bit different than the philosophy as it is for most spread teams. As the Indianapolis Journal and Courier has reported:

Gary Nord made no secret about one of his goals for Purdue's offense.

"We're going to throw the ball to the tight end," the first-year offensive coordinator said.

Nord's history would indicate that he won't stray far from that statement. In his 24 seasons as an offensive coordinator, tight ends have led in receptions 22 times.

"We're seeing that," junior tight end Kyle Adams said. "Coach Nord gets the ball a lot to the tight ends. It's great being in this offense."

Okay. But then ESPN throws out further mixed signals:

Florida Atlantic used more two-back sets with double tight ends, but kept the spread structure in place.

What is a “spread structure” with two-back sets? At some point all that is just semantics. What I predicted, based on what I had seen from Nord and Schenellenberger, was a pro-style offense in that they would use one-back, four wide, five wide sets, but also two-back, I-formation ones with play-action. Whether that is “spread structure” or not, I am unsure, but the basic idea was to predicate your offense on either a one-two punch of power-runs with play-action passes or spread sets with quick and five-step passes countered by draws and screens. Purdue, with Painter and in recent years, focused almost entirely on the latter, whereas I expected Nord to bring in a mix.

Below are clips of the kinds of sets I expected Nord to mix in with his system.



Note the mix of spread sets and play-action from traditional sets. Yet here is video of Purdue’s spring game. (Ht: The Rivalry, Esq.



Looks an awful like the old stuff, no? That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s a concern. FAU had some decent success as an upstart program running a system that suddenly was sort of out of vogue – the pro-style stuff. Yet why focus solely on what hadn’t gotten you over the hump against the good teams? Maybe those concepts are on the way; maybe Purdue didn’t want to show too much for spring ball; maybe they know something I don’t. I’m sure familiarity with the old system was important for the players because so much of the spring was about newness: new players, new coaches, new schemes. So no need to unleash the whole package. But I’m just not convinced Purdue will win a lot of games without doing something more interesting next year, and that more interesting might be something a bit old school. Going back to the Brees days of five-wide three-step quick game from gun will not be enough; being different takes all kinds of forms.

Best case scenario: the offense evolves from what is in that spring highlight clip to something like what Mike Gundy and Gunter Brewer do at Oklahoma State – lots of three-wide, one-back and one tight-end sets, play-action from gun as well as quick passes, and the occasional under center look as well. (The more I study the Okie State offense the more I like it, at least regarding schemes.) Worst case scenario? A replay of 2008, but with inferior players.

What might the University of Tennessee's new offense look like?

Among the reasons that Lane Kiffin was hired at Tennessee -- other than to stir up various controversies and to publicly go after both Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer of course -- was to revitalize a stagnant Volunteer offense. And, other than his stint in Oakland (where offense goes to die, just ask Randy Moss) Kiffin sports some some fairly impressive offensive credentials, i.e. his years at Southern Cal first under Norm Chow and later as co-offensive coordinator with Steve Sarkisian. To aid him in bringing potency to the offense is the Vols' new OC, Jim Chaney, who is best known as the offensive whiz who brought basketball-on-grass to Purdue (along with Joe Tiller and Drew Brees). Chaney is most recently of the St. Louis Rams with Scott Linehan, but, much like Kiffin's time in Oakland, the less said about that the better.

So what will the UT offense look like in 2009? Hard to say, but it is likely to be a blend of the USC offense and what Jim Chaney did in college and the pros.

Since Pete Carroll and Norm Chow put together the USC offense and it took off (there is some minor controversy about who should receive most of the credit), Southern Cal's offense has been built around a few basic features:

1. It is pro-style in the sense of formation and personnel: They use a tight-end, they keep the quarterback under center most of the time, and use a variety of formations.

2. The running game is based around zone blocking, which focuses on double-teams at the point of attack and gives the runningback freedom to hit it playside or cutback; wherever the crease is. This kind of running works well from one-back sets and multiple formations, since it doesn't require (though it can use) a lead-blocker and the rules for the linemen stay the same regardless of whether there are two tight-ends or four receivers in the game.

3. The passing game is a steady dose of simple dropbacks and quick, three-step passes, but with plenty of play-action is thrown into the mix for the purpose of striking for big plays. Think Indianapolis Colts in terms of play-selection, though with more quick, three-step passes, like the "spacing" concept:



Also, you can get a flavor of the old USC offense by watching the below highlight video of Palmer:



What Chaney has historically done is actually quite similar: He too has long utilized one-back sets, five-step and three-step passes, and the run-game is all zone blocking based. So it's a good fit, which is one of the things that Kiffin had long made clear: he wanted to find someone to call the plays but run his system.

The biggest differences between Chaney's system and Kiffin's -- at least as highlighted during Chaney's time at Purdue -- was Purdue's total commitment to the spread, including the shotgun and lots of five-wide sets, and their receivers' heavy dose of "option routes," which give the receiver the freedom to cut in or out (or curl up) depending how the defense plays them. That said, Norm Chow had these routes in his arsenal too, so it isn't like Kiffin is unfamiliar with them. Diagram of Chow's version below (hat tip Bruce Eien).



Compare the Drew Brees highlights with the Carson Palmer ones from above.



Bottom line

The upshot is that it's still too early to tell -- and I will have to wait until closer to the season to give the Vols' offense a fuller analysis -- but don't expect an Urban Meyer or Rich Rodriguez style spread offense, but neither should you expect the old West Coast Offense either. The formations will likely be basic one-back ones with a mixture of three-, four- and five-wide receivers, but with the ability to "get big" with tight-ends and fullbacks when the situation requires. In other words, they will be multiple. Below is a clip of Jim Chaney answering tentative questions about the offense.



If you want more specifics on the dropback game, check out this post from Trojan Football Analysis on Norm Chow's passing offense. (And see my Airraid post that includes routes and reads from Norm Chow, whose offense Mike Leach's Airraid is a steroid-infused and mutated version.)

And for run game specifics, might as well get them from the horse's mouth: Alex Gibbs, run-game guru of the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons, who taught Chow, Carroll, Sarkisian, Kiffin, et al. how to properly run the zone run game.



UPDATE: In response to an email, I thought I'd mention that Jim Chaney helped orchestrate the the single worst whipping of a Nick Saban defense I've ever seen (and I have watched this tape a bunch of times): Purdue's 52 to 28 victory of Saban's then #7 ranked Michigan State Spartans. Michigan State had no answer for Brees: Purdue took a 28-6 lead on four first-half Brees TD passes, and for the game he was 40 of 57 (!) for 509 yards and 5 touchdowns. As Saban said, they were "humbled." As I said, I can't think of any other game where a Saban defense just got destroyed in that way, and it was Chaney there calling the plays.

The bad news? The next season (when Purdue went to the Rose Bowl), Michigan State beat Purdue 30-10. Saban's pretty good at making adjustments.

UPDATE 2: The good Senator over at Get the Picture chimes in with good thoughts. He accurately notes that many observers noticed that playcalling under Kiffin and Sarkisian at USC was more erratic than Norm Chow's "surgical precision." Then again, it's supposed to be Chaney doing the actual play-calling, so as long as Kiffin's scheme is sound, all should be well, right? We'll see.

The rise and fall of the spread via Purdue's Curtis Painter

Dr. Saturday recently wrote about his guiltiest pleasures of this past college football season. One of them was Purdue Quarterback Curtis Painter's rather miserable season, despite all the preseason hype from so-called experts like Mel Kiper.

Curtis Painter's Implosion. I do feel for Joe Tiller, a perfectly decent coach who brought the spread to the Big Ten when it was still considered a novelty, went to a Rose Bowl and whose tenure in West Lafayette should be remembered as an unambiguous success. But one of the banes of my existence in preseason was the unfathomable hype for Painter, led by Mel Kiper, who anointed Painter the top senior quarterback prospect in the country despite his wretched mark (0-14 from 2005-07) as a starter against BCS conference teams that finished with a winning record. Painter subsequently tossed one touchdown to six interceptions during the Boilermakers' 0-4 Big Ten start -- during which Purdue scored 6, 3 and 6 points, respectively, against Penn State, Ohio State and Minnesota -- and was benched just in time to watch a redshirt freshman who began the season at running back light up Michigan for a season-high 48 points in November. In short, I was right and Mel Kiper was wrong ... so wrong, in fact, he'd dropped Painter to No. 2 on his list of the top senior quarterbacks by December. Way to eat crow.

For starters, I totally agree about Kiper. Aside from the fact that almost no one knows how to properly evaluate quarterbacks (scroll down for a discussion of Malcolm Gladwell's "quarterback problem"), it is well known in football circles that Kiper is just a fan -- he possess no uncanny scouting skills. (But who really does?) There's nothing wrong with that, but all he brings to his "rankings" and assessments is exactly the same thing you or I would after watching a lot of games on TV and checking the stats. That's it. No more, and no less. Kudos to him for doing what he does, but that's all it is.

But I think Curtis Painter's woes (great against weak teams, mediocre to poor against good ones) can be partially explained as a data point in a larger story. This story gets back to my discussion of the rise of the terrible spread team, and even my earlier post about whether the spread has reached its apex as far as helping the little guy beat the big goliaths with lesser talent.

Painter never started under the original Purdue offensive scheme architects, namely Joe Tiller plus Jim Chaney. Chaney left to go to the NFL (now he's with the University of Tennessee), and in stepped Ed Zaunbrecher, who had followed great success coaching offense at Marshall with some success doing the same at Florida under the Zooker and less at Illinois. When Zaunbrecher got there Tiller had already decided to move in some new directions with the offense. But, while there were differences the problems wound up being many of the same things, because of the talent and overarching philosophy.

In many ways, under Zaunbrecher I liked a lot what Purdue was doing. If I had to compare their offense to anyone else's in terms of structure and schematics it likely would have been the New England Patriots under Belichick/McDaniel -- one-back sets with a tight-end, shotgun, and lots of base, simple 5-step concepts like the snag, all-curl, three-verticals, four-verticals, underneath option routes, and smash. This was slightly different than the original Tiller model with Chaney when Drew Brees and Kyle Orton had been there, which was more no-back and more three-step drops.

Brees-Tiller-Chaney clips:



Painter-Tiller-Zaunbrecher



(Compare the quick drops and completely spread sets that Brees tended to operate from with the longer developing plays used with Painter. Some of this is styles--Painter probably had a stronger arm than Brees, and Brees was a quick decisionmaker with a quick release. And some of the evolution was necessary. But it's worth pointing out the slightly different styles.)

In any event, the Tiller-Chaney-Brees model of four and five wides and three-step drops began to turn somewhat stagnant against the big boys; it's not a phenomenon entirely unique to Painter. Kyle Orton began the 2004 season as a Heisman contender and then Purdue rattled off loss after loss and failed to generate enough offense. And the reasons were simple: by then, if you spread out Wisconsin, Michigan, or Ohio State, they had guys who matched up with all your receivers, and if you had any advantage at all they could still put a floater or robber defender to bracket him and take him away.

But, despite the changes with Zaunbrecher, the exact same pattern emerged, except almost even more brutally. From about 2002-2004, with the Chaney short-passing model, Purdue would manage a number of completions, all of them for very, very short yardage, no run after the catch, and would hope to break a play or two. You saw a lot of that with Zaunbrecher, but mixed in were a lot of very difficult to complete downfield passes to guys who were not open. The week before, against Syracuse or even Minnesota, they'd look like the Patriots. Against Penn State or Ohio State, they looked like Syracuse. Though Zaunbrecher was more willing to stretch the field, against these top teams they could not shake anyone free. Plus, this exposed the quarterback to pressure and the line to certain protection issues, something that had not been as much of an issue with the previous quick-release approach.

In my 2006 article, I wrote this about where the spread was headed:

The offense has arguably become the opposite of an equalizer, it has become an amplifier: if you are talented you can really rack up the points because no one can cover Vince Young, Ted Ginn or the like one-on-one, but if you're not, you just get sacked and no one gets open.

So -- and I recognize that there were other issues at work like play-calling and Painter's at-times erratic decision-making -- but to me Purdue and Curtis Painter became an object lesson for the effect of the spread. When they played out of conference opponents or Big 10 bottom dwellers, they lit them up: their offense worked perfectly to create matchups and generate plays that garnered chunks of yardage at a time. But against the big boys, they got manned up, pressed, jammed, and blitzed into oblivion.

And maybe even Purdue's new head coach, Danny Hope, who coached with Tiller back in the Brees days and this past season, has noticed this. He chose not to retain Zaunbrecher and has instead hired Gary Nord from Florida Atlantic, who spent the last two decades as Howard Schnellenberger's offensive coordinator. If anything, his offense is NFL-esque, but almost a throwback to the early 90s of the Cowboys under Aikman and 49ers with Steve Young. Maybe it will be a success, or maybe it won't. But the days of Purdue being spread-only are likely over.

Tiller? Definitely a success at Purdue. Maybe his biggest fault was that his idea was so good it got copied and assimilated too quickly.

Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.

Smart Notes - Oct. 24, 2008

1. "How To Make Friends and Influence People" - By Tony Franklin

So Auburn is still awful. And Tony Franklin's post-mortem interview the otherday revealed little about the situation, though it reaffirms a basic coaching truth: it's always going to be about more than Xs and Os. Yes there's the old Jimmies and Joes, but it's also whether or not your colleagues actively dislike you. That never helps.


2. Spread Worth Watching

Texas Tech and Kansas play this upcoming weekend. For all the talk about the rise of awful spread teams, these two squads still get it right. Interestingly both Mike Leach and Mark Mangino worked together at Oklahoma, and after Leach left to take the TTech job Mangino basically ran Leach's offense the year OU won the title. But now, don't get them confused. While Leach still runs his Airraid offense, Mangino's has evolved into something of a more traditional -- but still unique -- spread offense. (They run the absolute heck out of the smash package, and they run it better than just about anyone else.)

And although Rich Rod's Michigan tenure, along with failed spread experiments at Auburn, Virginia, and others may have sufficiently freaked out any head coaches, athletic directors, and boosters at major programs from making a switch, both Leach and Mangino should get serious consideration for top jobs at major programs.

3. Nick Saban, Football Historian

Nick Saban is a good coach, alright? And he's been around for longer than people realize. So it warms my heart in a special way to hear him making a point that I've made on many occasions: Football is a game of repeating cycles, with what went out one year coming back the next. In a recent interview, Saban got all fired up on the topic (prompted by a discussion of the Wildcat offense):

...Now the Crimson Tide coach really starts waxing poetically about the past. You mention a running attack... He went deep into the memory bank for this reference. Back to being a defensive assistant on a West Virginia team that lost 52-10 to Oklahoma in 1978.

"I've been coaching for a long time, aight?" Saban said. "Played Oklahoma when you couldn't even see the other sideline because the crown of the field was so heavy, when they tried running downhill, and they were moving. They had (David) Overstreet, (Billy) Sims, and guys that could run fast anyway, they didn't need any help. And so, I've been through that. And them horses that pull that wagon around every Oklahoma scored, [darn]-near died, because they had to do it so much the day we played them."

His final point was a good one: "All this stuff comes around," he said.

"One of these days," he warned, "when old the guys like me don't coach anymore, and the young bucks who grew up defending four-wides and everything, somebody's going to run the wishbone, and they may not know a thing about how to stop it."

Let's unpack this a bit. The main point is a simple one: good schemes ebb and flow, and knowledge bases change so, as he says, defensive coordinators who have done nothing but face spread teams may not have good and ready answers when a spread team comes around. There's not much new in football (contrary to the beliefs of some fanatics unlearned in football's history). Further, Saban is a great coach, but he knows what it is like to be unprepared. The worst I ever personally saw a Saban defense perform was back when he was at Michigan St. when they played Purdue, which was quarterbacked by Drew Brees at the time.

Purdue 52, Michigan State 28

Drew Brees had over 500 yards passing and five touchdowns. And oh-by-the-way, it was Michigan State's homecoming. Whoops. Saban's defense was simply unprepared for the precise, pass-first spread offense Purdue was using.

But the point about football knowledge is one illustrated by Saban himself. The next year Purdue was arguably better (they went on to the Rose Bowl and had beaten both Michigan and Ohio State), and Michigan State crushed them 30-10. So the point is that, while I agree with Saban that what goes around comes around in full force, I disagree that, in the future, coaches will have to start from scratch.

Defenses do not forget. Football might be cyclical, but its history is recorded. What worked once might work again, but the answers are also right there on the game film to be retrieved; there's no guesswork necessary. Saban might be right that the wishbone might come back -- it's an exceptionally well designed offense, and with the right talent, any offense can work -- but no one will succeed simply by resurrecting football's dinosaurs. Someone will have to put a new twist, or a new spin on it. So a restatement of the rule might be that football is cyclical, but it evolves at every step.