Football team wraps up camp
with scrimmage
By Paul Trembacki
Sports
Editor
The Purdue football
team celebrated the culmination of fall camp with a full-contact scrimmage
inside the Mollenkopf Athletic Center Saturday, and the series of more
than 100 plays left coach Joe Tiller only somewhat satisfied.
Tiller was pleased
with the efforts of the team but he said the consistency the team needs
to get through an entire football game wasn't there.
The first team offense
recovered from an interception on the second play to put together several
impressive efforts. The defense, likewise, got burned a few times but
also disrupted the offense frequently.
On the play after
the interception, which linebacker Joe Odom almost returned for a touchdown
before the whistles blew prematurely, Montrell Lowe had a 45-yard run
to set up a touchdown.
Quarterback Brandon
Hance found his favorite target, Taylor Stubblefield, in the end zone
for a touchdown two plays in a row several plays after Lowe's run.
Hance completed
13 of 19 passes for 191 yards with three touchdowns and the interception.
"Overall, I was
somewhat pleased with my performance," Hance said. "Once we got going,
I thought, for the most part, we executed fairly well. The scrimmage
was a good assessment to see where we are as a whole. We’ve done
a lot of hard work the last two weeks, and this was a good test to see
our strengths and weaknesses."
When Hance had to
scramble, he usually looked for one number — Stubblefield's 21.
Stubblefield, a redshirt freshman, caught all three of Hance's touchdowns
and finished the day with five catches for 160 yards.
"I feel comfortable
throwing him the football," Hance said. "He is consistent with his routes
and with his hands."
Tiller wanted the
Hance-led first team offense to run 30 plays, but the unit ran more
than 40. Every healthy player on the roster got to play, as the first,
second and third team offenses and defenses took the field.
The inexperience
of some of the younger players led to some sloppy plays, which included
fumbled snaps, dropped passes and lost shoes.
But the younger
players put together some notable sequences.
Freshman quarterback
Kyle Orton, rolling to his right, connected with redshirt freshman Gary
Heaggans for an 18-yard touchdown when the second team offense was driving.
On defense, sophomore
defensive end Kevin Nesfield had two sacks, and redshirt freshman Doug
Swann had a sack several moments after being momentarily injured.
The starting defense
was without a pair of senior returning starters — cornerback Ashante
Woodyard and tackle Matt Mitrione. Tiller said Woodyard would have played
if the scrimmage were outside; however, Tiller didn't want to risk Woodyard
re-injuring his surgically repaired knee on the artificial turf.
Mitrione, meanwhile,
has not practiced yet this season because of a stress fracture in his
right foot. He has started the last 35 games for Purdue and wants to
play now, but Mitrione will be out for a few more weeks, Tiller said.
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