Three interceptions and a fumble recovery is a career for most guys.

It was almost a half for Bill Kay on a gray day back in Nov., 1979 when the No. 14 Boilermakers withstood a furious comeback to hold on against the No. 10 Michigan.

Kay had two interceptions and a fumble recovery all in the first 30 minutes, the only problem was Purdue went to the locker room clinging to a 7-0 lead.

"It was one of those days when I was at the right place at the right time," Kay said yesterday from his home in Augusta, Ga. "But I remember thinking we should have been up for than just a touchdown at the break, but we also had a lot of confidence in our defense."

Purdue penetrated Michigan's 40 on four occasions that day, but had to settle for a two-yard touchdown run by junior running back Ben McCall late in the first quarter. The score was set up by Kay's initial heist of the day.

Beating Michigan was important to Kay, a 6-foot-2, 194 pound corner back out of Melrose, Ill. The Wolverines and Notre Dame came after him hard when he was a high school senior, but his recruiting contacts with Michigan left a bitter taste in Kay's mouth.

"I still root against Michigan to this day," said the customer service executive for Boral Bricks who happens to be the father of seven children. "I learned to hate IU when I was at Purdue, especially after losing to them when I was a freshman, but I came to West Lafayette with a disdain for Michigan."

Kay was joined by Coach Jim Young as someone who had a passion for beating the Maize and Blue.

Not only did Young serve as an assistant under legendary Coach Bo Schembechler for nine years at Miami (Ohio) and Michigan, he was the acting head coach after his boss suffered a heart attack prior to a loss to USC in the 1970 Rose Bowl.

Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that Michigan had manhandled Purdue in Young's first two years in West Lafayette. The 40-7 trouncing in Ross-Ade Stadium in 1977 was not a huge surprise as Michigan was seeing red after the Boilers, under Coach Alex Agase, upset No. 1 Michigan the year before. The 24-6 defeat at Michigan Stadium in '78, however, probably cost Purdue a Rose Bowl berth.

The 1979 season had started with so much promise. The Boilermakers were in just about everybody's preseason top 10, but had suffered painful early season losses at UCLA and Minnesota. Ohio State was on its way to running the table in the Big Ten, so the loss to the Gophers all but flushed the Boilermakers' dreams of playing in Pasadena.

Purdue had sights on a high-profile bowl bid and a win over Michigan, or so was the feeling at the time, would help it get there. Another target for the players and coaches to shoot for was a 10-win season — the greatest single-season victory total in school history. All the Boilermakers had to do was to win the two remaining regular season games and the bowl game to accomplish that feat.

The Junk Defense, though not quite as dominating as it was during the '78 season, forced three fumbles, two interceptions and blocked a punt in the first half alone. Michigan had just 67 yards in offense at the break and its league-leading ground game (316.8 per contest) was limited to just 99 yards for the game. Still, with the temperature in the 30s, the chilled Ross-Ade Stadium crowd of 69,829 had reason to be nervous.

Kay became the eighth Boilermaker in history to snag three interceptions (Paul Beery picked off four against Wisconsin two years earlier establishing a record that still stands).

"We had a very talented defense," said Kay whose seven interceptions in 1979 tied a single-season record at the time. "But it was a group that did things as a unit very well. I really felt that my interceptions were a result of the entire defense doing the necessary things which allowed me to make those plays. It was the essence of teamwork."

Purdue took a 14-0 lead early in the third quarter on a one-yard run by junior quarterback Mark Herrmann (only his second career rushing touchdown), thanks to another Michigan mistake. A bad snap to Michigan punter Bryan Virgil gave Purdue possession on the Wolverine 25.

The Boilermakers appeared finally ready to put some distance between themselves and Michigan as Kay made his third heist and returned it to midfield. Kay was named Sports Illustrated national defensive player-of-the-week for his efforts.

But the visitors held and promptly marched 69 yards on eight plays with the drive culminating on a six-yard touchdown pass from quarterback John Wangler to tight end Doug Marsh with 4:44 left in the period.

Special teams would play a role in the game's final outcome. Schembechler, in his unique way of putting things, may have summed up the game best.

"It was a lousy game, but give Purdue credit," Schembechler said after the game. "The two worst kicking teams in America played today and the worst one lost."

Purdue's kicking game did struggle mightily in 1979. John Seibel's 29-yard field goal, his first of his career, was huge and it came with 13:17 left in the game giving Purdue a 17-6 lead. Seibel, who is recently battling a life-threatening illness, had started out the year as the place-kicker. He struggled enough to be replaced by Walt Drapeza, who had missed a short field goal and had another one blocked in the first half.

With the defense playing well, the game appeared over when McCall scored on a nine-yard run (amazingly the Boilermakers' longest scoring jaunt of the season) with 10:27 left.

"I think beating Michigan was extra sweet for me," said McCall a couple years ago when thinking about that game. "It was the only Big Ten school that didn't recruit me. I also wanted to hold on to the ball and run hard in those last few moments, that is what I remember."

Michigan refused to fold, however. A long kickoff return by freshman sensation Anthony Carter and subsequent 39-yard run by Butch Woolfolk set up a short touchdown dash by Roosevelt Smith to trim the lead to 24-12 with 8:21 left.

McCall then committed the Boilers' first turnover of the day by fumbling the ball at his own 41. Six plays later, Woolfolk scored from two yards out. The visitors couldn't convert the two-point play, but with 5:34 to go, Michigan was down just 24-19.

It looked like it was going to be déjà vu all over again for Purdue. The same weekend a year earlier, the Boilers blew a perfect Big Ten slate by allowing Wisconsin to rally from an identical 24-6 advantage in the fourth quarter. The game finished in a 24-all standoff.

When Wolverine linebacker Andy Cannavino picked off a tipped Herrmann pass and returned it to the Purdue 27 with 3:41 remaining, it looked like the Boilers were doomed.

Michigan thought it had the victory. And had it not been for a couple of huge defensive plays it would have been right. Cornerback Wayne Smith's bone-jarring hit on tight end Norm Betts on a pass in the end zone on third down from the Purdue 2 and linebacker James Looney's sack of Wangler for a six-yard loss on the next play, were critical to Purdue getting out of the game alive.

Still it wasn't over. Young, who was as horrified as his mentor Schembechler at his special teams woes, decided to have Herrmann take an intentional safety instead of risk a last-minute punt. Michigan couldn't convert on a desperation bomb as the game ended.

There were a lot of twists and turns in this game that really wasn't a classic until the fourth quarter. The Boilers had done something that few teams in the league at the time, with the exception of probation-riddled Michigan State, were able to do, and that was crack the Big Two-stranglehold Ohio State and Michigan had on the league.

It also helped give the Boilermakers their first 10-win season in school history. One thing it didn't do, however, was get Purdue a prestigious bowl invitation. Michigan, which lost for the first time in consecutive weeks in the regular season in 10 years got a better bowl invitation (Gator) than Purdue did (Bluebonnet vs. unranked Tennessee).

"It was the greatest of experiences being around those guys," said Kay, who played four years in the NFL, mostly for the Houston Oilers. "I have friends from those teams at Purdue that I wasn't all that close with as a player, but I feel close to them now.

"The reunions that guys like Pete Quinn have put together are really something. So was beating Michigan."

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