Sunday, September 9, 2007 11:09 PM CDT
Purdue proves to be too much
Spoo enjoys visit, but not the game
BY BRIAN NIELSEN Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Before the game, after the game, maybe even during an hour-plus lightning delay, Bob Spoo enjoyed his personal homecoming.
The often inconsolable Eastern Illinois football coach seemed in better sorts after a loss than about anytime in his 20-year head coaching career that now stands 120-99-1.
“Some good old friends,” Spoo said. “It was just delightful to see them. That was the best part of the trip. The game itself, we didn’t play very well.”
But Eastern should still get that $250,000 guaranteed check from Purdue, which got its money’s worth in Saturday’s 52-6 win at Ross-Ade Stadium in front of 52,504 fans, the largest crowd to see an EIU football game.
Unless an Appalachian State or the like proves differently in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, 12th-ranked Eastern is not likely to face as formidable of a foe as its one Football Bowl Subdivision opponent of this year and second Big Ten Conference football opponent in school history.
“Oh, they’re good,” EIU senior defensive tackle Tim Kelly said of the Boilermakers. “Since I’ve been here this is the best team I’ve seen. Eastern Michigan, BYU, Hawaii, Illinois - by far this is the best.”
Brad Painter continued to put his name with the best Purdue quarterbacks by throwing six touchdown passes tying the school’s single-game record of Drew Brees, who did it twice in 1998, and Kyle Orton, who established e mark in 2004.
Painter did this while completing 38 of 49 passes for 348 yards with no interceptions before leaving the game with 12:37 remaining after his sixth TD pass, a 1-yarder to Jerry Wasikowski on a fourth down play after Eastern’s defense had stopped two Purdue running plays from the 1-yard line.
“We would throw 49 times in a year back in my time,” said Spoo, who was Purdue’s starting quarterback in 1957 and ’58 and part of ’59 and an assistant coach at his alma mater from 1978 through ‘86 before landing the head coaching job at Eastern.
Painter connected with 12 different receivers but most often with Dorien Bryant, who caught 12 passes for 111 yards including a 10-yard touchdown.
From the start, the Panthers looked to be no match as Jacen Taylor ran 25 yards on the game’s first play from scrimmage which was followed by Purdue gains of 11, 9, 7, 16, 4 and after an incomplete pass a 13-yard touchdown completion to Jake Standeford, capping Purdue’s tone-setting eight-play, 85-yard drive in which its only third-down play resulted in the score.
When Quinten Pontius fumbled away Eastern’s kickoff return and Purdue cashed in that turnover for a field goal, Eastern was behind 10-0 before its offense ever took the field.
“That really doesn’t matter,” EIU quarterback Cole Stinson said. “If our defense gives up points early they come around. They stopped them and then we came out and went three-and-out, too.”
If Eastern gained any thoughts of an upset when its first possession included Cole Stinson’s 11-yard pass to Trent Steckle on the first play, fullback Chip Keys’ 8-yard run for another first down and Travorus Bess’ 35-yard run to the Purdue 13, those did not last long.
“We hurt ourselves,” Spoo said. “After the big run the very next play we had the illegal procedure penalty.”
So the Panthers wound up having to settle for Tyler Wilke’s 24-yard field goal on that possession, which turned out to be one of their offensive highlights on a day they had four three-and-outs.
Wilke’s 27-yard field goal capped a 61-yard drive with 2:52 left in the third quarter providing their only other score. Eastern managed just 236 yards total offense while Purdue gained 533.
After starting the season with a 19-for-26, 308-yard passing game against Tennessee Tech when being named Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Week, Stinson was humbled in a 15-for-32, 143-yard game by the Purdue defense coordinated by former EIU and Spoo assistant Brock Spack.
“Cole’s game today was sub par compared to last week and what he’s capable of doing,” Spoo said. “The other guy (Painter) was just the opposite.”
Stinson made no excuses as he was bothered by Purdue blitzes.
“I’ve just got to put the ball four inches lower or throw a half-second faster,” the EIU senior said. “I just have to play faster.”
Purdue allowed only minimal damage by EIU’s former Minnesota receiver Micah Rucker, who had six catches for 74 yards while Bess finished with 67 yards on 11 rushes plus two pass receptions for 19 yards.
“Our offense is better than what it played today,” Rucker said. “If you can’t play to that speed it’s going to be a long day. For whatever reason, we just couldn’t get it done today.”
Purdue had done enough by halftime when it was ahead 31-3 and Panther had 251 yards on 25-for-33 passing before lightning delayed the start of the second half by an hour.
Eventually, Eastern appeared to escape West Lafayette without any serious injuries heading into Saturday night’s home game between FCS nationally ranked teams when Illinois State visits.
“It’s disappointing because we lost and gave up 52 points but at the same time coach (Roc) Bellantoni (the defensive coordinator) said our defense improved 100 percent from last week,” Kelly said. “He gave us a list of things to improve and we improved on every one of them.”
Stinson said: “It’s not discouraging. It was discouraging for about five minutes after the game. They say the feeling never truly goes away until the next game. We’re going to use this to motivate us.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
Eastern 3 0 3 0 - 6
Purdue 17 14 7 14 - 52
First quarter
P - Jake Standeford 13 pass from Curtis Painter (Chris Summers kick), 12:30
P - FG Chris Summers 39, 10:44
E - FG Tyler Wilke 24, 6:11
P - Greg Orton 20 pass from Painter (Summers kick), 3:10
Second quarter
P - Dustin Keller 28 pass from Painter (Summers kick), 9:34
P - Keller 3 pass from Painter (Summers kick), 4:45
Third quarter
P - Dorien Bryant 10 pass from Painter (Summers kick), 5:47
E - FG Wilke 27, 2:52
Fourth quarter
P - Jerry Wasikowski 1 pass from Painter (Summers kick), 4:49
P - Dan Dierking 4 run (Summers kick), 3:45
TEAM STATISTICS
EIU Pur
First downs 11 34
by rushing 2 12
by passing 9 22
by penalty 0 0
Rushes-yards 22-83 38-178
Passes attempted 38 51
Passes completed 19 39
Had intercepted 0 0
Yards passing 153 355
Total offense 236 533
Punts-yards 8-44.1 5-39.8
Fumbles-lost 1-1 1-0
Penalties-yards 6-30 4-30
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing
E - Travorus Bess 11-67; Ademola Adeniji 5-14; Chip Keys 1-8; Alicus Nozinor 1-4; team 1-(-4); Cole Stinson 1-(-3); John Gadson 2-(-6)
P - Jaycen Taylor 16-85; Dan Dierking 6-54; Kory Sheets 9-29; Joe Williams 2-10; Joey Elliott 1-4; Dorien Bryant 1-2; Curtis Paint 1-(-6)
Passing
E - Stinson 15-32-0-143; Bodie Reeder 3-5-0-9; Jason Fisher 1-1-0-1
P - Painter 38-49-0-348, 6 TDs; Joey Elliott 1-2-0-7
Receiving
E - Micah Rucker 6-74; Quninten Ponius 3-17; Bess 2-19; Trent Steckle 2-13; Joel Evers 2-4; Fisher 1-11; Nozinor 1-9; Tim Gritzman 1-5; Zach Yates 1-1
P - Bryant 12-111, 1 TD; Greg Orton 7-58, 1 TD; Dustin Keller 4-58, 2 TD; Jake Standeford 3-26, 1 TD; Desmon Tardy 3-23; Kyle Adams 2-33; Kory Sheets 2-9; Jerry Wasikowski 2-8, 1 TD; Selwyn 1-12; Jaycen Taylor 1-9; Byron Williams 1-5; Frank Halliburton 1-3
Spoo, Graziano planned for Sports Talk
CHARLESTON Eastern Illinois sports fans can listen to head football coach Bob Spoo talk about his return trip to Purdue and the Panthers upcoming home game against Illinois State on this week’s edition of Panther Sports Talk.
The show is broadcast live at 6 p.m. Mondays on WEIU-FM 88.9 and on Consolidated Your 13.
Additional guests are to include junior wide receiver Quinten Ponius and EIU women’s rugby coach Frank Graziano talking about his historic first NCAA game coming up on Saturday.
Cook is Co-Newcomer of Week
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. A bright spot from Eastern Illinois’ Saturday afternoon loss at Purdue was the play of their young special teams including redshirt freshman Kevin Cook who was named the Ohio Valley Conference Co-Newcomer of the Week on Sunday night.
Cook, a punter from Libertyville, had seven punts against the Boilermakers for an average of 47.7 yards per punt. His long punt on the afternoon was a 61-yard effort. He also pinned Purdue inside the 20 one time and sent two long punts for touchbacks as EIU kicked away from Purdue All-American candidate Dorien Bryant.
For the year Cook is averaging 47.3 yards per punt over the course of two games. He is currently the Ohio Valley Conference leader in punting and ranks fourth in the NCAA FCS ranks.
Eastern Illinois will return home to face Illinois State on Saturday night at O’Brien Stadium in a match-up of two nationally ranked teams. The annual Hall-of-Fame game will kick-off at 6 p.m.
Cook split the Newcomer Award with fellow freshman Justin Kraemer a kicker at Tennessee Tech. Other weekly award winners included Derek White of Tennessee Tech as the offensive player, Drew Robinson of Jacksonville State as the defensive player and Gavin Hallford of JSU as the special teams player.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
