Purdue (7-5) vs. Central Michigan (8-5)
Dec. 26th,
7:30 pm, ESPN
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2007 Motor City Bowl
History, Each Team's Best Bowl Moments, & More
 |
|
National
Rankings |
|
Central Mich. |
Purdue |
|
Total Offense |
|
22nd 447.92 ypg |
35th 423.33 ypg |
|
Total Defense |
|
106th 450.23 ypg |
60th 385.33 ypg |
|
Scoring Offense |
|
26th 33.77 ppg |
31st 32.92 ppg |
|
Scoring Defense |
|
107th 35.85 ppg |
47th 24.75 ppg |
|
Run Offense |
|
34th 182.85 ypg |
77th 136.08 ypg |
|
Run Defense |
|
72nd 165.38 ypg |
55th 149.42 ypg |
|
Pass Offense |
|
32nd 265.08 ypg |
17th 287.25 ypg |
|
Pass Defense |
|
111th 284.85 ypg |
72nd 235.92 ypg |
|
Turnover Margin |
|
43rd 0.23 |
32nd 0.33 |
|
Central
Mich
at Kansas L 52-7
Toledo
W 52-38
at Purdue 45-22
N Dakota St
L 44-14
No Illinois
W 35-10
at Ball St
W 58-38
Army
W 47-23
at Clemson L 70-14
at Kent St
W 41-32
at W Mich W 34-31
E Mich
L 48-45
at Akron
W 35-32
MAC Championship
Miami Univ. 35-10 |
Purdue
at Toledo
W 52-24
East Illinois
W 52-6
Cent Mich
W 45-22
at Minn. W 45-31
No Dame
W 33-19
Ohio State
L 23-7
at
Michigan L 48-21
Iowa
W 31-6
Nwestern
W 35-17
at Penn St L 26-19
Michigan St
L 48-31
at Indiana
L 27-24 |
|
Position
Ratings
relative to each
other |
|
CM |
5
highest
1 lowest |
P |
|
5 |
Quarterbacks |
4 |
|
3.5 |
RBs |
4 |
|
3.5 |
Receivers |
4.5 |
|
3 |
O
Line |
3.5 |
|
2 |
D
Line |
3.5 |
|
3 |
Linebackers |
3.5 |
|
1.5 |
Secondary |
3 |
|
3.5 |
Spec
Teams |
4 |
|
3 |
Coaching |
3.5 |
|
Ugh ... a rematch. And a bad one, too.
Motor City Bowl officials might be ecstatic to get a Big Ten team,
but instead of getting Michigan State and the home angle, which
would've put more butts in the seats, they get Purdue, who beat
Central Michigan 45-22 on September 15th in a game that wasn't even
as close as the final score might indicate. The Boilermakers got out
to a 38-0 lead before taking the foot off the gas and allowing CMU
to bomb its way back in the game, but does that mean the world will
be excited to see a rematch?
There's 1,048 reasons to tune in. That's the number of yards gained
by the two teams in the first game.
The Motor
City Bowl will be a lot of things, but it's not going to be dull.
Even if it's a Purdue blowout, it'll be a fun blowout. Of course,
things rarely go as planned in rematches. Maybe Purdue comes in
overconfident and doesn't take the game seriously. Maybe CMU comes
up with its best defensive performance of the season. No matter how
it turns out, there will be lots of yards in a huge game for both
conferences.
This is the MAC's showcase game considering this is when its
champion is supposed to shine, and in a tough year for the league, a
win over a Big Ten team would do wonders going into the rest of the
bowl season. For the Big Ten, a loss to a MAC team, especially in a
rematch game, would be devastating for the already awful national
reputation. As bad as a loss would be for the Big Ten, it would be
even worse for Purdue.
On a little bit of a hotseat after a few years out of the Big Ten
title race, Purdue head man Joe Tiller probably can't afford a
fourth straight bowl loss. Three years ago, his Boilermakers
suffered a painful late collapse to Sam Keller and Arizona State in
the Sun Bowl. Last year, they came up with one of the bowl season's
most lifeless performances in a 24-7 clunker to Maryland in the
Champs Sports Bowl. While there haven't been a whole bunch of big
wins over the last few years, a win over CMU would make it two
straight eight-win seasons for Tiller.
CMU has had a strange, uneven season, rocking in MAC play going 8-1
with a blowout 35-10 win over Miami University in the championship.
However, the team was beyond awful in non-conference play with a win
over Army, and blowout losses to Kansas, Purdue, North Dakota State,
and Clemson by a combined score of 211 to 57, or 57.75 to 14.25. Led
by star QB Dan LeFevour, the offense was a scoring machine in MAC
play, but the defense, the worst in the league, often gave up yards
just as quickly. Expect more of the same against the Boilermakers.
Don't expect a defensive battle in any way and don't expect anything
other than eye candy for the die-hard bowl fans. There will
certainly be more important, more interesting games as the bowl
season goes on, but for at least a little while, this could be the
most explosive.
Players to watch: Central Michigan begins and ends with
Dan LeFevour, the sophomore do-it-all quarterback who's been the
best player in the league over the last few years. He has to get
going from the opening snap to take advantage of the average Purdue
linebacking corps and try to open things up on the inside for
Justin Hoskins, who's coming back from an ankle problem,
and Ontario Sneed. This is a speedy Boilermaker defensive
front that'll do everything possible to keep LeFevour from getting
to the outside, but it'll be the offense that can do the best job of
forcing CMU to throw the ball more. In the first game, Purdue got up
so quickly that LeFevour had to start throwing, and while he threw
for 364 yards and two touchdowns, he only ran for 26. If he runs for
100 yards, Purdue will be in big trouble.
Purdue will try to control the game with a strong running game that
didn't get enough credit or attention throughout the year. Kory
Sheets has a nice mix of speed and power with 832 yards and nine
touchdowns this year, including 144 yards and two scores in the
first meeting with the Chippewas. Junior Jaycen Taylor missed
a portion of the season, but when he came back in mid-October, he
turned into a key cog again with a 157-yard, two touchdown day
against Northwestern while providing a bit more speed than Sheets.
With CMU forced to pay attention to these two, holes should open up
for the Purdue passing game.
This will be the final game in the great career of Purdue WR
Dorien Bryant, who has 287 career catches for 3,483 yards and 21
touchdowns to go along with his kick and punt return duties. He'll
be the main focus of the CMU secondary, but he should be able to run
free across the middle if the safeties have to cheat up to handle
Sheets and Taylor. With Selwyn Lymon, one of the team's most
explosive threats, kicked off the team, Bryant and tight end
Dustin Keller should combine for at least 15 catches.
One of CMU's shining stars in the loss to Purdue, and the team's
best defensive player, was senior LB Thomas Keith, who made
11 tackles in the first meeting and finished with 139 stops on the
year. A good-sized hitter and sure tackler who everything funnels
around, he's not going to make a bunch of plays all over the field,
but he'll stop everything that comes his way. It'll be his job to
keep Sheets and Taylor from breaking off big runs and allow the
safeties to hang back and deal with the Boilermaker receiving corps.
Central
Michigan
will win if... Purdue doesn't care. While Michigan State is
off playing Boston College and Indiana is playing Oklahoma State,
Purdue, among the lower-level Big Ten bowl teams this year, gets a
MAC team it already beat. They can say all they want about taking
this game seriously, going to Detroit for a throwaway bowl like this
isn't like going to Tempe or Orlando. Central Michigan has the type
of explosive attack that can score in a hurry and get out to a big
lead of Purdue comes out lethargic. If the CMU offensive line can
give LeFevour time, and if the defense can come up with a few early
stops, the first quarter could be a shocker.
Purdue will win if... it gets the running game
working right away and there aren't a lot of mistakes. Purdue has
done a good job all season long of keeping the turnovers in relative
check, and this game can't be any different. With the exception of
quarterback, the Boilermakers are far more talented and far better
in all other areas, so it'll take something extraordinary to blow
this. That'll start with controlling the tempo from the start,
getting a few early scores, and get Taylor and Sheets rumbling for a
full sixty minutes to counter the inevitable backlash from the CMU
offense at some point. Defensively, Purdue has to use its
athleticism to swarm LeFevour and avoid getting pounded on. If the
team's head is into it, it should be able to end this by halftime.
What will happen: Purdue will go through the motions and be
in for more of a fight than it wants early on, but in the end, the
CMU defense will break down for a long stretch and get tagged for a
big run. It might take a quarter or so, but the Boilermakers will
come up with at least 20 points or more in a row to blow up a decent
battle. LeFevour will throw for well over 300 yards, but Purdue will
crank out over 500 yards of total offense using a balanced attack to
get the win.
Line: Purdue -9 ... CFN Prediction: Purdue 48
... Central Michigan 30
2007 Motor City Bowl
History, Each Team's Best Bowl Moments, & More
