Brooks’ big day blasted Boilermakers en route to Big Ten honor

Minnesota’s sole touchdown of the first half was sparked by Myrick’s first interception of the game and Brooks busting off a 23-yard run to the Purdue 1.

Brooks’ 176 rushing yards led a 326-yard ground attack, the biggest output since the 380 gained against San Jose State on September 20 last season.

Brooks wore down Purdue with his powerful inside runs then broke it open by breaking tackles and outrunning the rest of the defense on the second play of the second half to make it 17-6.

ABOUT MINNESOTA (3-2, 0-1 Big Ten): Kill declined to name a starting quarterback on Tuesday, but indicated after last week’s loss that the decision to pull a potential redshirt from Demry Croft was merely a move to develop his freshman signal-caller.

Minnesota quarterback Matt Leidner was 8 of 12 for 59 yards with two TDs.

68-for-127, 694 yards, four touchdowns, and five interceptions; that’s Blough’s stat line through his first three starts, including 21-of-49 for 207 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions against Minnesota. It was “definitely something that we wanted to get going (Saturday)”. “For us to do this right now is good for everybody’s confidence”. “We’ve got to tackle better when it matters”, Hazell says. As mentioned, even with Saturday’s monstrous offensive output, there are many more games against teams much better than Purdue remaining on the schedule. But a crack appeared when Paul Griggs – who can’t shake his kicking demons – clanked the extra point off a goal post.

Two plays after his 71-yard TD, he ran over safety Leroy Clark, just like he did on the touchdown run. “All of a sudden we were out of sync”. If fielded cleanly, Purdue has the ball with a chance to add to a 6-3 lead early in the second quarter. Purdue should have stuffed the run, and forced Gopher quarterback Mitch Leidner to try to transform into Andrew Luck, which was as likely as Luck riding the next Kentucky Derby victor.

“It was my breakout game”, Brooks said.

Before things got started, this one perhaps had the makings of a rare Boilermaker win, what with that near upset of Michigan State last week and Minnesota’s inability to score coming in.

It looked like another disappointing day on offense as the Gophers only led 10-6 at halftime.