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Post being replied to

The day Joe Tiller took the ball away from Drew Brees. by mkovac

I guess a post like this is so far afield that it could be posted on any NDN board, or maybe I’m justifying it to give myself cover so no one gives me a rash of sh*t.

For those of you who remember the ND/Purdue game I’m talking about, you will most likely remember the details better than I, so please feel free to correct any mistakes I make.

To begin with, I can’t remember if the game was at ND or Purdue.

I think it was Brees’s third year, and he was already a an All America QB or close to it.

First quarter, Purdue has the ball on their own 20 something yard line. Fourth down. No score. Tiller decides to go for it. ND stuffs the play and a few downs later, the Irish score and never look back, winning handily.

Does Basketball-on-grass Joe Tiller dial up his passing game with the quick-hitters over the middle that Brees destroyed ND with the previous year? Does Tiller give future All-Pro Drew Brees, an under-size athlete with cat-quick instincts and a release that would make Otto Graham and Dan Marino cry with envy, the freedom to put on an offensive show and throw the ball all over the field and power the Boilermakers to victory?

No, he does not.

Joe Tiller, for reasons that I never understood, took the passing arm of his quarterback and sheathed it. Basketball-on-grass was put in a drawer and Woody Hayes’s Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust was, uh, “dusted off,” and found wanting.

Sometimes even a dunderhead like me can see with laser clarity and say, “This is the way.” But Tiller’s reply, which so clearly should have been, “This is the way,” was instead a blank stare and a collection of off-tackle running plays that went for no gain.