Boilers to have three weeks
between games
By Greg Doddridge
Staff
Writer
Purdue now has 76 extra days to prepare for Notre
Dame on the gridiron.
The Purdue-Notre Dame football game scheduled for
this Saturday has been canceled and rescheduled for Dec. 1 in response
to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
There will now be an extended lull between games
for Purdue. The Boilermakers had a bye week last weekend, after the
Cincinnati game on Sept. 2. Because the Notre Dame game has been moved,
the lull will extend to the Akron game on Sept. 22.
Playing the game during a bye week would not have
worked; Purdue is only open on Oct. 20 and Notre Dame is free Nov. 10.
Purdue coach Joe Tiller said the one bye week would
be good and beneficial for the team. But now the Boilers will have a
new experience to deal with — three weeks between games.
"I think to go three consecutive weeks without
some sort of game-type, clock management would be a mistake on our part,"
said Tiller.
The team will hold a full-contact scrimmage Saturday
in Ross-Ade Stadium, but the event will be closed to the public and
media.
"I think that with youth on a football team offensively,
that the more practice time we get is beneficial to us," said Tiller.
"I don't feel the same way about our team defensively."
Tiller said he anticipates the practices will now
start to get better as the team has this extra week to help pull it
together. The emphasis has been and will continue to be on using practice
as a tool to help the players and coaches cope with events of Sept.
11.
"I know it is unfortunate what has happened, but
I believe the last two days, the practices that we have had, we've actually
gotten better as a team and gotten closer," said senior defensive end
Akin Ayodele.
Marty Dittmar, Purdue's team chaplain, has been
leading prayers the past two days for the team to help the players and
coaches.
Ayodele said the only thing that the team can do
out of practice to help cope with this disaster is to pray for the victims
of the attacks. He said the prayer is to help the players come closer
together as a family, a reoccurring theme that Purdue has expounded
upon the past few days.
This feeling of staying together on the field,
having practice the day after the attacks, is to foster a sense of strong
family for the Purdue football players.
"I would rather be with my teammates than be by
myself," said Ayodele.
So the focus in the coming week will be on practice
in preparation for the Akron game on Sept. 22. Ayodele is taking it
one week at a time. And Tiller has no thoughts at all on Notre Dame.
"That is so far down the road, it's irrelevant
to the task at hand," said Tiller.
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