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GOLDANDBLACK EXPRESS • VOLUME 25, EXPRESS 11 • 32 episode of BTN's "The Journey." He's been the only Purdue angle on the series this season. The piece focused on Bentley's transition from weakside to middle linebacker after Sean Robinson's career-ending knee injury against Illinois in early-October. Bentley has been a starter since Week 1. "I definitely have leadership qualities, but I really didn't expect it to come up as soon as it did," Bentley said on the program about needing to be more vocal as a Mike 'backer. On the show, Robinson said he told Bentley that he didn't need to change his personality or the type of player he is on the field, but he just needed to speak up a bit more and do it with "some intention and some authority." Linebackers coach Marcus Freeman said he thought Bentley has handled the transition well and expected the freshman to con - tinue to improve. Bentley thought that'd be the case. "I just want to continue to have the team in the right spot," Bentley said, "everybody be in the gap and in pass plays, everybody in the right coverage, the zone, everybody on one accord. Because if everybody is on one accord, can you really run a wrong play? That goes along with being a middle linebacker, being a leader and just doing what you're supposed to do." READY FOR A RETURN Danny Anthrop already has changed his Twitter account. In the section typically re- served for bio-type information, Anthrop simply has "9-5-15." That'd be the date of Purdue's season opener at Marshall next season, the date he's intent to be back on the field after tearing the ACL in his right knee on Nov. 1 at Nebraska. "I'm disappointed, but there's nothing really I can do about it now," Anthrop said Nov. 12 in his first comments since the injury. "So the thing I'm focused on right now is getting healthy and getting ready for this next season. I'm do - ing everything in my power to heal and get back for that. "I've had some luck in the past of coming back pretty quickly (from injuries), but the ACL is a lit- tle bit different. I think the biggest part is just all the rehab I'm going to have to do. That's going to be the key to getting back and just let- ting my body take over from there." Anthrop likely will have sur- gery in the coming weeks, he said. Last week, he said he was still de- ciding what kind of surgery he'd have — whether he'd have a graft IN THE OPPOSITE CORNER Comments from the last opposing coach and this week's opposing coach: Wisconsin coach Gary Andersen "If you break down the game, it had some swings there. Again, my hat goes off to the coaches in the Big Ten. Their offense came out and did some things that caused some issues on the first drive and we had to react to it. I think our kids handled the changes a little bit that they gave them early and then settled in and had a decent feel of what was going on. Credit to the young men being able to handle some things they hadn't practiced and seen. … "We gave up the wheel route, the big play obvi- ously which was well-executed by them with a tre- mendous player. Like I said during the week, they have a couple guys where if they get out in the open, we ain't catching them, and we aren't gonna catch that guy." Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald "I know Coach (Darrell) Hazell well. I have a ton of respect for Darrell and his staff. They are obviously building something special in West Lafayette. Like us, they've battled through a lot of injuries. You've seen them improve. They definitely have a plan on what they're doing in all three phases. They made the quarterback change to Austin (Appleby) a few weeks ago and have pretty darn dynamic offensively since then and played some pretty good teams. They have great skill in the backfield. They've obviously lost two really talented receivers. "Defensively, they're very aggressive, play a lot of man … (Ryan) Russell's a guy that's played a ton of football there for them and he's a very dynamic guy on the edge. (Ja'Whaun) Bentley, the young middle linebacker, is very active. (Frankie) Williams and (Anthony) Brown are there most active guys in the secondary and they jump off the tape. Probably the best special teams unit we've seen. '" Stephen J. Carrera Pat Fitzgerald's Wildcats pulled one of the biggest upsets of the sea- son by winning at Notre Dame on Saturday.