The Wolverine Now

OCT. 7, 2012 ROAD WARRIORS The Wolverines Pound Purdue At Ross-Ade, 44-13 T BY JOHN BORTON hey donned "Road Warriors" T-shirts, and the Wolverines were determined to rule the highway in their first Big Ten travel test. Purdue happened to get in the way and wound up flattened. Michigan pounded out 304 rushing yards on Ross-Ade Stadium's well-trod sod — 235 of them by Denard Robinson — and flat-out embarrassed the Boilermakers at home, 44-13. Robinson completed 8 of 16 passes, threw for 105 yards and a touch- down, and just as importantly, didn't pitch an interception in his first outing since a four-pickoff nadir against Notre Dame. Michigan's defense kicked in forcefully, scoring a touchdown itself and holding the Boilermakers to 213 yards, 56 on the ground. A game that featured the majority of ESPN GameDay analysts picking Purdue produced a lead pipe to the throat of the notion that Michigan can't compete for the Big Ten championship. "It's kind of embarrassing losing like that in Ross-Ade, with a lot of people visiting and just getting blown out," noted Caleb TerBush, the first of three Purdue quarter- backs on the afternoon. TerBush matched Robinson's 105 yards passing and one touchdown, but he also tossed a TD to the wrong team and saw the rest of his offense going nowhere fast. Michigan's opening drive developed Senior quarterback Denard Robinson rushed for 235 yards on 24 carries, leading U-M to a total of 304 yards on the ground. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL like a tribute to early-1970s forays into West Lafayette. The Wolverines methodi- cally chewed up the Boilermakers, going 78 yards in 17 plays (all but three of them runs). Redshirt junior running back Fitzger- ald Toussaint (17 carries, 19 yards, two touchdowns) capped the march with a one- yard touchdown plunge at the 4:40 mark of the first quarter. Hoke wouldn't settle for a field goal on fourth-and-four at the Purdue 22, instead directing the Wolverines to convert. They did, spreading four receivers out and allow- ing Robinson to gun an eight-yard throw to junior receiver Devin Gardner, saving redshirt junior kicker Brendan Gibbons for extra-point work. 44 13 "I think it's confidence in both sides of the ball," Hoke said of the decision. "I felt good how we were going along a little bit, but good that our defense was going to play." His team's confidence only grew after Purdue's second straight three-and-out. Robinson burst away for 38 yards, igniting an eight-play, 63-yard touchdown drive on U-M's second possession. Robinson executed a senior-to-freshman hookup on the other key play of the drive, facing third-and-11 on Purdue's 15. The U-M quarterback gunned one over the middle to tight end Devin Funchess, who reached back to pull in a tough catch and hang on, setting up Toussaint's second one- yard TD dive. "We went off what was working today," Robinson said. "We were running the ball well so we kept doing it, and we took some shots when we needed to." Purdue head coach Danny Hope has been compared to Wile E. Coyote, seeing all of his best plans blow up in his face. That's

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