February 11, 2010

10 Minutes Or Less: 1999 Penn State at Purdue

UPDATE: LaVar Arrington has offered his ringing endorsement of this post via Twitter, as evidenced Here and Here. I will now go to my grave a happy man.

Inspired by Nittany WhiteOut's recaps of PSU games from the past few seasons and by Ohio State blogger Our Honor Defend's drive-thrus of classic OSU games, I've decided to throw my hat into the ring. Thus, it's my distinct pleasure to present a new LBU segment entitled: 10 Minutes Or Less, where we'll re-visit some classic PSU football games that I compile from DVD's I manage to get my hands on and upload them to YouTube. "Why 10 minutes?" You may ask. Well, it's simple: YouTube doesn't allow you to upload videos longer than 10 minutes without splitting them into several parts.

Today, we're traveling all the way back to the distant year of 1999, when a No. 2 ranked and undefeated PSU team led by its shake 'n bake defensive duo of LaVar Arrington and Courtney Brown traveled to Purdue to take on a hi-octane Boilermaker offense led by none other than recent Super Bowl champ Drew Brees. This game was one of those quintessential PSU victories, one in which the opposing team's offense whipped PSU on the stat sheet, but thanks to some scoring help defensively (most notably LaVar Arrington's sack on Brees and fumble recovery TD, pictured to your right) coupled with a few timely offensive plays, the Nittany Lions managed to hang on to dear life for the win.

I should also highly emphasize that "hang on to dear life" part at the end of the previous paragraph, because Drew Brees came within 12 yards of scoring the game-winning touchdown. Somehow, despite giving up a few big pass plays in a row, PSU's defense managed to dig deep one last time, forcing Brees to throw four straight incompletions from the 12-yard line. To this day, I still don't know how we managed to do it, but I'll tell you one thing: This game just gets better with age, given how much Brees has been tearing it up throughout his NFL career. A selfish part of me likes to think that going up against the likes of that NFL-caliber 1999 PSU defense helped make Brees the QB that he is today.

Ironically, the day this game was played (October 23, 1999) also happened to be the day Norm MacDonald hosted Saturday Night Live, making it his first time back on the show since being fired a year and half earlier. It was also the first time the nation was introduced to the name 'Turd Ferguson,' which has had a profound influence on Yours Truly to this day. We'll try and get a recap of Norm's legendary hosting gig up someday. In the meantime, sit back, relax*, and enjoy my first creation.

* Unless you're a Purdue/Drew Brees fan.


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4 comments:

  1. Awesome work, I especially like the "fail".

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  2. Thanks. I pretty much used Our Honor Defend's videos as a template for how I did this one and how I plan on doing future videos (I've got 4 other games on DVD waiting to be ripped).

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  3. Can't wait for more! Definitely awesome!

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  4. Does anybody think the missed FG late in the 4th quarter of this game giving Brees good field position played a role in Joe's decision to punt late against Minnesota?

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