| | | |
Friday, December 13, 2002
Sutherland's return sparks the offense
By Tim Stratton
Special to BCSfootball.com
On Saturday, Tim Stratton and Purdue improved to 2-0 with a 45-10 victory over Kent State. The junior tight end made seven catches and led the Boilermakers with 105 receiving yards.
We had another physical game this past Saturday. Kent State played us well, and I think it was a good game for us because of their physical play. It will better prepare us for this week's game at Notre Dame. But before I get to that game, let's talk about Kent State.
|  | | Purdue's Tim Stratton (89) shakes off Kent's Nashville Dyer (11) on his way to a 27-yard gain on a pass from Drew Brees. |
I felt our offense played well, but it took us about a quarter to warm up. The return of Vinny Sutherland really impressed me, and I think he showed everyone how important he really is to our team. He definitely got my MVP for the game. He returned well, caught well and flat out played
great.
Our offensive line did another outstanding job of not allowing Drew Brees to get sacked. The receivers did a great job of getting open against Kent's drop 8 defense. The defense played well considering that Kent had about five or six formations they used throughout the game.
Congrats to Travis Dorsch for breaking the school record for field goals. And for those who
missed the game, he kicked a kickoff through the uprights, and that got the crowd excited. It was another great home victory for us.
Our next game is going to be a tough one. Notre Dame played great against Nebraska. I caught the end of the game and the overtime and was impressed with Notre Dame's overall team speed.
The atmosphere at Notre Dame is very exciting -- their fans do a great job of making that stadium one of the hardest to play in with as loud as they get.
We're preparing for this team the same way we did the last two teams we faced. Nothing is going to change as far as preparations and we're looking forward to a challenging game. Notre Dame is going to play with a lot of emotion this week and we need to come out and play Boilermaker ball and be patient. Special teams will be a key this week as evidenced by Notre Dame's two returns for touchdowns last week.
The students on campus, as well as the team, have anxiously awaited this game. It is a big rivalry and both teams are talented so I think the fans are in for a beauty. We'll see what happens on Saturday.
Take care and have a great week.
Stratton's Purdue Statistics
| Year |
Rec. |
Yards |
Average |
TD |
Long |
| 2000 |
10 |
137 |
13.7 |
1 |
29 |
| 1999 |
49 |
593 |
12.1 |
4 |
34 |
| 1998 |
38 |
381 |
10.0 |
7 |
29 |
| Total |
97 |
1111 |
11.5 |
12 |
34 |
Click here to go to Purdue's official web site.
| | | |
|
|
