Saturday, September 17, 2005

Cats almost Pur-do it tonight

Just pulled in the driveway from tonight's game - Whew! What a game. It had a sense of big-time football from the moment we walked into the stadium: the Purdue traveling party was in strong voice, the ZonaZoo stayed and stood for the entire game, and the UA band supported the team (except as noted later) 'til the end. Wilbur even did a pole dance to AC/DC! The Wildcats came out on the short end of the pole, though, 31-24. Not a bad loss to a highly ranked Big10 team, and just a few miscues away from an upset.

If you wear red tonight - the Cats looked sharp in their red unis and white pants, their first appearance in red jerseys in 25 years. It was always hard to understand why the crowd wore red but the team didn't. It even seemed like they moved a little quicker in red.

Shot in the foot - that happened a few times, with untimely penalties and poor execution stopping promising drives throughout the game. Or keeping drives from getting started at all. Early in the game the Cats had been called for 5 penalties with the Boilermakers declining 4 of them.

Baugher steps it up - the dude averaged over 57 yards/punt on 7 kicks, a new school record for punt avg. in a game. A 71-yarder bounced into the endzone. Amazing show tonight, Danny. You definitely helped keep us in this one.

Team goes MIA in third quarter - the offense only managed ONE yard of offense after the half until they rattled off an 8 yard gain on the last play of the 3rd quarter. Coincidentally, the band was MIA from their seats, also, using this time to split into small groups around the track. While the Pride of Arizona was awesome the rest of the game, the team could have used some more support from the band in that crucial quarter. Hats off to the band the rest of the game - great job.

Students show up and stay - what fun it would have been in the ZonaZoo tonight. Great spirit, body paint jobs - even the "F*** Purdue" cheer was loud and well-timed. Please, though - a little quieter during the National Anthem.

What a difference a week makes - and the caliber of the opponent. After a week off, it's off to Berkeley to play Cal.

Get 'er Done! and Bear Down.

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