Defining moment

Cold brutish night in West Lafayette, In., and yet here again was the living carpet, an echo from some other time. Drew Brees was doing his thing, the last time they made the Ross-Ade Stadium turf disappear like this. Seth Morales was catching passes from heaven. And Purdue was going to the Rose Bowl for the first time in 34 years.

Somewhere in the human crush that night, some college kid waved a plastic lobster aloft. Football players, their old-gold helmets shed, clenched red roses in their teeth. And Joe Tiller, that wily old fox, was being serenaded with shouts of "Joe! Joe! Joe!", as if he were some movie-handsome idol and not the crusty old Ball Coach who'd brought the glory days back again.

No word if they serenaded Jeff Brohm like that last night. But, lord, what a seminal moment for him and Purdue football, if they can make it stick.

Purdue 49, Ohio State 20 could still be an anomaly, after all, some jaw-dropping night of magic that came winging out of the ether and might as easily vanish back into it. Iowa had one of those against Urban Meyer's legions last year, laminating the Buckeyes 55-24 in Iowa City. The Hawkeyes lost their next two games, to Wisconsin and, yes, Purdue. Ohio State destroyed No. 13 Michigan State 48-3 the next week and went on to win the Big Ten title and crush USC 24-7 in the Cotton Bowl.

So, yeah. There's that.

On the other hand, there's this: Purdue, a two-touchdown 'dog, beat the No. 2 team in the country by 29 points. It was their second win over a ranked opponent this season; they thrashed then-No. 23 Boston College 30-13 in Ross-Ade last month. And it was the first time they'd beaten an opponent ranked this high in 34 years.

Ironically, that was also Ohio State, who was also ranked second at the time.

This win over this Ohio State team was far more impressive, if only because it was so astoundingly thorough. Purdue dinged the Buckeyes' defense for 539 yards. Senior running back D.J. Knox and sensational freshman receiver Rondale Moore ran and caught and punished Ohio State all night, combining for 406 yards and five scores.

Ohio State, on the other hand, committed 10 penalties and numerous acts of unaccountable dumbness, particularly on defense. The dominant image of this night will always be Urban Meyer repeatedly grabbing his head in disbelief as Moore or Knox got loose again.

In the end, Purdue did something no one believed possible: They made an Urban Meyer team look helpless. Worse, they made it looked unprepared, a clear indictment of Meyer himself.

Brohm, on the other hand, didn't just send a football team out there; he sent a razor. As the score mounted, you kept waiting for Purdue to begin doing Purdue things, all those knuckleheaded mistakes that have thrown away so many Ws in the beige decade since Tiller departed. But this time Purdue didn't do those things.

No, sir. Ohio State did.

And so here's to Purdue, and here's to Brohm. If there wasn't already, there is now a Brohm Era in West Lafayette. And last night it officially brought back to life a program thought to be dead, brought back the living carpet that turned a mausoleum into a football stadium again.

I wasn't there, so I don't know if a certain guy was down in the crush last night. But I was down in that crush plenty of times back in the Tiller days. And one of those times, I remember this guy -- eyes unfocused, grinning like a fool, clearly transported by something more than school spirit -- standing at the entrance that led back to the Purdue football complex.

For just a second, our eyes met. His grin spread wider. And then he offered up what surely was the proper benediction for that night, and for this new one as well.

"Boiler up, mother------," he rasped.

Indeed.