Rough year comes to ugly close

Purdue 34, IU 10. Just like that, the Hoosiers closed the door on another rough rebuilding season. In the week prior to the intrastate rival game against Purdue, it seemed that the Hoosiers were so pumped up, so excited and so ready to win the finale.\nInstead, the Old Oaken Bucket ends its brief stay in Bloomington, and IU has to reply to Boilermaker taunts with the usual, "Wait until basketball starts."\nIU should take pride though in the fact that its campus is prettier, better-smelling and has fans that don't feel the need to pelt opposing coaches with styrofoam.\nSo there were highlights to the otherwise forgettable football Saturday, so let's take a look back at events that transpired both on and off the field in West Lafayette.\n• In a surprise move to start out Saturday, the IU offense didn't go three and out on the first series of the game. Instead, it made it all the way to 38-yard line, until senior quarterback Tommy Jones was sacked for a loss, and the Hoosiers were forced to punt from the 33-yard line. It set up a nice 5-play, 81-yard series that ended in a touchdown for the Boilermakers.\n• IU coach Gerry DiNardo made an incredibly classy move by deciding to play both Jones and senior quarterback Gibran Hamdan. It was very nice of DiNardo to let both seniors play in their final game, although one wonders where this niceness was at last week's final home game against Purdue. Hamdan saw action only as the team's holder on kicks in his last time in Memorial Stadium. Perhaps DiNardo was sending a subliminal message that he was already looking forward to his sophomore season when he gets to play more of his recruits, while giving former coach Cam Cameron's the shaft? Hmmmm....\n• This next highlight was probably the best and most unbelievable play of the game. Purdue's quarterback had completed a pass to his wide receiver who came into contact with IU's freshman linebacker John Kerr. Kerr put one of the most unbelievable hits on this wide receiver. When Kerr reached the receiver, he didn't just tackle him. He lifted him completely of the ground and then slammed him onto the field as if this receiver was a rag doll instead of a 6-foot 2-inch 176-pound athlete. Even the Purdue side was so in awe that it showed the replay a couple times.\n• So this really isn't a highlight from the game, but it was still unforgettable. For some reason the Purdue press box, which is brand new and incredibly nice, smelled like a bad mix of 'BO' and smelly feet. And the IDS crew was stuck in the middle of it. But just when we thought the stench couldn't get any worse, the man next to me decided to mark his territory. This man, who had an odd resemblance to Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movie, had been squirming in his seat for about a minute until finally he leaned to his left and passed the loudest and smelliest gas on the planet. For the next five minutes, my fellow reporters and I were stuck gagging and giggling while the man pretended nothing happened. It was almost unbelievable as seeing male Purdue students walking around dressed up in full bunny costumes. Something is definitely a little off on that campus.\n• For Purdue, a highlight would be that the Boilermaker defense held IU to negative rushing yards until 1:07 was left in the third quarter. THIRD QUARTER. No wonder the Hoosiers lost. Between the yo-yoing of quarterbacks and the negative rushing yards, IU didn't have a chance. And at the end of the third, when the Purdue announcer was going over the most recent game stats, I feel he had a huge smile on his face when he read that IU had 18 rushes for 26 yards, while Purdue's total yardage was 391 yards.\n• It was nice to see that Purdue fans were as classless as Ohio State fans were on Saturday. By the way, watching Buckeye fans jump over huge fire piles trying to outdo each other just proves the point that Buckeye fans lack a plethora of brain cells. But in any case, Purdue fans stopped short of flipping over cars or burning anything, but they did take the opportunity to throw stuff on the field, including styrofoam cups and plastic bottles. So not only did your team line up on the wrong side to kick off just before this event, but you feel the need to throw objects that did nothing but heed an officials warning and make you all look like donkey's behinds. Very nice, indeed.