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Published Sep 6, 2009
Purdue Sunday notebook
Brian Neubert
Publisher
Purdue scored 52 points, ran for an astonishing 315 yards and racked up 535 total yards. There were only two penalties called on the offense, too.
"I think we executed excellently on offense," Hope said, "as well as you possibly could, in all phases of it, in the running game, protection, throwing and catching with a new quarterback and young receivers."
The offensive line, in particular, dominated.
"They played fast," Hope said. "They looked like they knew where they were going and they got there in a hurry. That was not the case last year. We had guys who tried hard, but they couldn't play fast, they weren't real sure of themselves, they were new to Purdue and college football.
"We looked much more like a veteran offensive line in the first game of the season than any game at any point in time last season."
Purdue ran for 315 yards and gave up only one sack, the result, according to Hope, of having its protection set the wrong way on the Boilermakers' second offensive snap.
Two Players Punished
Senior wide receiver/return man Aaron Valentin and freshman linebacker Dwayne Beckford were held out of the first quarter of the Toledo game for what Hope called, "inconsistent effort toward academics."
"We've known (that) was coming for a while, the team and both the players," Hope said. "We're very serious about our commitment to academics on our football team and those guys need a little bit of help."
Health Report
Purdue came out of its season opener pretty healthy, it would appear at first glance.
"We have a couple guys banged up and we'll see what happens today in practice," Hope said. "You know how it is when you go out and play 80, 90, 100 snaps. They're all hurt the next day, then a couple days later you find out where it really is.
"We'll find out a lot more Tuesday, but I think we're going to be OK. I don't think we've lost anybody for this week's game against Oregon."
Hope did say that freshman linebacker Antwon Higgs, who has been ill, has been cleared to practice Tuesday and will be available in Eugene.
Notes
Hope said Gravesande has been catching punts all along in preseason practice and a review of those practices showed that the wide receiver did not drop a single one.
"I think he's OK now," Hope said, "but he hadn't practiced any up until game time."
Halliburton, said to be one of the Boilermakers' most improved players, is listed as a fullback, but Hope said that Purdue still would have played Jared Crank extensively had Halliburton been available.
Freshman cornerback Josh JohnsonClick "He did a great job," Hope said of Crank, "a great job."Here to view this Link. played only on special teams.
"He's a guy we need to get out there (on defense)," Hope said. "We need to get him out there and we need to get (quarterback) Caleb TerBush out there."
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