Purdue to face Minnesota

By Greg Doddridge
Staff Writer

Purdue's developing offense will meet a budding Minnesota defense on Saturday in a flip of conventional wisdom.

The past few years saw a rock-solid Purdue offense face off against a very experienced Minnesota defense. But the Golden Gophers' defense only returned three starters while the Boilers' offense returned five starters from last year.

Minnesota is with a new defensive coordinator this year. David Gibbs is out after four years on the job. Moe Ankney, a Purdue defensive coordinator from 1991-1993, is the new defensive boss.

"They don't quite seem to be the pressure team they were when Gibbs was there as their coordinator," said Purdue coach Joe Tiller. "But schematically, they look very similar."

Minnesota still abides by the same four-man defensive front strategy. But after watching tape of the Golden Gophers' 38-7 loss to Toledo on Aug. 30 and 44-14 victory over Louisiana-Lafayette, Tiller said he gets the impression that Minnesota is playing less man-to-man coverage and more zone.

And this may not help No. 24 Purdue (2-0) when it takes on Minnesota (1-1) at 11:10 a.m. Saturday in Minneapolis.

"The Akron defense allowed us to exploit them," said wide receiver Taylor Stubblefield. "They played a lot of man coverage, which allowed a lot of our receivers to get open."

Brandon Hance had seven more completions for 135 more passing yards between the Cincinnati and Akron games.

"Minnesota did a better job of defending the spread than they did the power game," said Tiller, in reference to the Ragin' Cajuns' spread offense as opposed to the power offense of Toledo.

The Golden Gophers are second in the Big Ten in passing defense, holding opponents to 137.5 yards per game.

Leading that Minnesota secondary attack is senior free safety Jack Brewer, who will defend receivers such as Stubblefield. Brewer leads the Golden Gophers with nine tackles per game, good enough for a fourth-place tie in the conference.

So will Purdue try to run a no-huddle, attack offense again this week?

"The 'attack' is a relatively new thing for our offense," said Hance. "I think it is better when you have a young offense to come together and regroup in the huddle."

If Purdue runs out of the huddle with either Joey Harris, Montrell Lowe or Sedrick Brown, Minnesota will present a linebacking corps that is averaging 23.5 tackles per game. The Golden Golphers held the Ragin' Cajuns to just 10 first downs and only 30 rushing yards.

"Minnesota improved dramatically from game one to game two," said Tiller. "Quite frankly, I hope they don't make the same improvement going into game three."

Purdue to face Minnesota

We predict the winners

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