Football
The-Ozone Note and Quotebook
By John Porentas

Too Many Muffs: The Buckeyes lost a game at Purdue last Saturday, but in the second half seemed to finally find some offense. The Buckeyes rallied from a 17-3 deficit to tie the game at 17 all despite having two turnovers in the red zone. The rally gave room for at least some optimism, but according to Jim Tressel, it isn't enough to hang your hat one.

"It's encouraging that we could do that (come back) but it's discouraging that we couldn't finish the job," said Tressel.

"I know that's the way our guys feel, because they're not into moral victories either."

E. J. Underwood

The Buckeyes made some plays at Purdue, but misfired too many times to come out winners. Troy Smith threw into double coverage for a turnover, Devon Lyons let a ball go off his hands for an interception, ditto Ted Ginn Jr., Antonio Pittman fumbled for a turnover, and early in the game Ryan Hamby dropped a ball that simply HAS to be caught. Each of those plays hurt the Buckeyes, and the game-swinging muffs weren't limited to the offense, either. Cornerback E. J. Underwood dropped a sure interception early in the game that may have made it a different day all together.

"E. J. almost had a pick right there in front of our bench that could have changed the complexion of the game," said Tressel.

Underwood would surely have scored on the play. Instead, the Boilermakers drove to a touchdown on the possession.

Gotcha!: Kyle Orton came off the Purdue bench to engineer the winning drive in the final minutes of the game on Saturday, but the play on which the Boilermakers scored has to be credited to the Purdue offensive braintrust. They simply outfoxed the OSU defensive braintrust on the call.

"It's a play we call The Sneak," explained Purdue Head Coach Joe Tiller.

"What we do is we start everything to the right and we block their defensive end and hold him for two counts," said Tiller.

After that, the tight end releases and runs across the field, in the opposite way of the motion. He was wide open.

"I thought that Orton did a great job because they ran a corner blitz on it, and the fake totally pulled the defense to the back running. He did such a great job of faking that he had a lot of time to throw the ball," said Tiller.

"It worked to perfection," said Orton. "It's one of those semi-trick plays that you practice for a couple weeks and only run it one time."

"I should have stayed backside. They had a good play called and they got us," said OSU linebacker A. J. Hawk.

"You have to give them credit for that. They ran the tight end across the field and you don't see that too often. I just didn't see it."

Looking for a Seven: OSU got a win over Michigan State when they unleashed Ted Ginn Jr. on the Spartans. Ginn scored three touchdowns on big plays. The Boilermakers saw that tape, and weren't about to let the freshman wide receiver have another big day.

Ted Ginn Jr.

"We did a good job in the kicking game," said Purdue Head Coach Joe Tiller.

"We were very concerned coming in with their tremendous skill and their ability to return the ball. Our punter did a nice job with his hang time. He didn't necessarily get it down the field so far, but he got it up there so it was difficult to return."

Once the ball was kicked, the Purdue cover teams knew exactly what to do.

"We contained their guys on their punt return, four and seven have great speed and we contained them," said Purdue wide receiver Taylor Stubblefield.

Ginn felt the attention, even when the Buckeyes lined up from scrimmage.

"They were pointing me out when I was out there. They know I'm a playmaker so they try to keep track of me," Ginn said.

Two Minutes to Glory: Senior Purdue quarterback Kyle Orton has been sidelined due to a hip injury, but came off the bench to lead the Boilermakers to the winning score on an 80 yard drive in the waning moments of the game. Joe Tiller explained why he opted to bring in his former-starter at that moment.

"We felt like we would be in the two minute game and that he has a little better experience and a little better handle on that part of the game," said Tiller.

Orton did just that, but added that he wouldn't have been able to get the job done had the Purdue offensive line not been able to have their way with the OSU defensive front.

"I thought our offensive line played better than it has in a long time," said Orton.

"Whenever you give us time back there in the pocket to make our reads we're a pretty productive offense."

A Good One in a Series of Good Ones: Purdue's win was a dramatic one, but that is nothing new for this series of late.

Dustin Fox

"You look back to the 2000 season over here where Drew Brees made an incredible pass to win the game and send them to the Rose Bowl," said OSU defensive end Simon Fraser.

"Then we were over here in 2002 and Jenkins made that catch. Those were storied games," Fraser said.

So was the game last year, when Dustin Fox got his hand on an attempted field goal on the last play of the game to preserve an OSU victory in Columbus. There would be no such heroics for Fox this year, however. Fox did not play a down from scrimmage against the Boilermakers last weekend due to a groin injury he sustained late in the week in practice.

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