Last night, the Purdue Boilermakers had shades of 2001 when they last went to the Rose Bowl. The Boilermaker offense was boiling up after they went down 7-0 to the Oregon State Beavers early in the game. They looked like the train was running on all cylinders after tying the game at 7. They called on kicker Mitchell Fineran in his Boiler debut and he did not disappoint by nailing three field goals, and he gave them a 13-7 lead at halftime. Junior defensive end George Karlaftis, we can call him George Train, was the leader of the Boiler defense. Jack Plummer engineered several scoring drives that helped the Boilers to pull away from the Beaves. After the score went to 16-7 on another Fineran field goal, the Boilers had to hang on at the end because Oregon State cut the lead to two. The next play sealed the game when Oregon State was picked off and the Boilers were able to go ahead by nine points. Zander Horvath looked like Mike Alstott, who also wore number 40. The final score was 30-21. Next week, the Boilers travel to Connecticut to face UConn, who will have to stop, look, and listen.
