Obligatory Purdue Football Post

I wanted this to just be a footnote to another post, but once I got going it sort of took on a life of it's own. Since neither Indy or The Evil Empire played this weekend, the Purdue victory made it 1 for 1.

Northwestern isn't exactly a football powerhouse, but at least we finally got a road win. Plus, at 5-2 with a 13 game schedule, we only need 2 more wins to qualify for a crappy bowl game. Normally I would feel pretty confident with Illinois and Indiana still to come, but Indiana inexplicably beat Iowa this weekend, who destroyed us. Could make for a good game.

Anyway, the main reason I write is that I listened to the 4th quarter on XM (after I was done sealing the deck), which of course was the Northwestern radio station's broadcast. That's one of the nuances of listening to games on the radio versus watching them on TV- the announcers are always incredibly biased to the home team. Purdue was up 24-10, with a 1st and goal on the 10 yard line with like 6 minutes left in the game. The next play was a short pass to make it 2nd and goal at the 5. Northwestern Radio Announcer #1 starts going off on Purdue! I'm going to paraphrase, but it was like "Now there is absolutely no reason for this. There is absolutely no reason to be throwing the ball when you're already up by 2 touchdowns with 6 minutes left in the game. I can't believe that we're seeing such a display of poor sportsmanship by Purdue here running up the score." Maybe you had to hear the guy- he was audibly agitated, like this was a huge personal insult by Purdue.

My first thought was that obviously, this guy doesn't watch a lot of Purdue football. I've seen us blow 2 touchdown leads in less that 6 minutes on several emotionally draining occasions. Additionally, 6 minutes is still a lot of time for any team! I mean, a turnover and a decent 2-minute drill can easily erase a two score deficit. Fortunately, Announcer #2 responded "I'm going to have to disagree with you here- if I were Purdue, I would definitely try to get some insurance points" and he went on to list a lot of the reasons I was thinking. The more I think about it, the more I disagree with Announcer #1.

On a side note, while digging up links for this post I noticed that the Wisconsin at Purdue game is going to be on ESPN Saturday, which will mark the second time this season (out of 3) that a Purdue game was on TV in Southern Maryland and I won't be able to see it. It's like ESPN has a rule that Purdue is only shown nation-wide when I'm on a plane to Utah.