First bowl practices encourage Keller

By TOM KUBAT
tkubat@journalandcourier.com

It's very early in the Purdue football team's preparations for its Dec. 26 date with Central Michigan in the Motor City Cowl, but the Boilermakers insist there will be no letdown.

They held their first two practices Saturday and Sunday in the Mollenkopf Athletic Center, and tight end Dustin Keller liked what he saw.

"Everybody's tempo is a lot better than I thought it would be," Keller said. "You take a couple weeks off and you'd think everybody would be kind of sluggish, but everybody's flying around and actually playing pretty good.

"A lot of people see that we're going to the Motor City Bowl and think that we're really mad and we don't want to play. The guys out here have been flying around and excited to be playing in a bowl game."

The Boilermakers ran through some drills and had some contact, but they won't do any scrimmage work until practices today and Wednesday night.

Since this is finals week, practices won't pick up until Dec. 16. After working out three days in a row, there will be an off day on the 19th before returning for four consecutive practices.

Following a morning practice on Dec. 23, the team will leave for Detroit, the site of the bowl game.

Guard Jordan Grimes, wide receiver Dorien Bryant and reserve tight end Jerry Wasikowski didn't take part in the early practices. Grimes is still recovering from a sprained ankle suffered at Penn State, Bryant was in his home state of New Jersey receiving an award and Wasikowski is recuperating from a strained knee suffered against Indiana.

After talking to other coaches, Purdue coach Joe Tiller decided before the start of the 2007 campaign that if the Boilermakers made it to another bowl game he would reduce the postseason practice schedule.

"You'd like to have a few more practices for (the younger players), but the game is actually determining our number of practices because it's an earlier game," Tiller said. "Typically, we've been around 20 practices, and our thought was to cut to 15.

"Right now, if we practice all the available days, minus the finals days that we can't practice, I think we get 14 days of practice."

There is no limit to how many bowl practices a team can conduct.

It's hoped that one benefit of fewer practices will help the Boilermakers, presumably with fresher legs, get off to a faster start against Central Michigan.

Purdue has failed to score a first-quarter touchdown in its last five bowl appearances.

"I feel like I have a major role on this team so hopefully I can provide a little spark early on to kind of change that," Keller said. "Hopefully we can jump out early and be the team with that early lead.

"We need to come out fired up and keep on pushing, have that killer instinct."

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Boilers want to come out swinging...I'm assuming via aerial assult . I also didn't know there was no limit to how many practices a team can have before bowl week. I sure do hope BJ keeps his players conditioned, however HEALTHY and not run practice like he did in the summer (too much tackling). There's no benefit from wearing these guys down before game time. We need to be smart and keep these players who are banged up away from so much contact and let them loose 12/26/07.