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| | Monday, November 8 | |||||
| WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Even Drew Brees was impressed.
Ron Dayne's 222 yards Saturday against Purdue put him on the
verge of major college football's career rushing record and
convinced the Boilermakers' quarterback that the Wisconsin senior
should get the Heisman Trophy.
"He's great," Brees said. "He's kind of been their team for the last four years. He's going to break the NCAA record next week and had a great day today. I think he deserves the Heisman." The Badgers, who climbed a spot to No. 9 in the AP poll Sunday, won 28-21 over the Boilermakers, who slipped from 17th to 22nd. Dayne became only the third Division I player to top 6,000 career yards, passing Tony Dorsett for second place and moving within 99 yards of breaking the 1998 Heisman winner Ricky Williams' year-old record of 6,279. "He's a great running back," Purdue coach Joe Tiller said. "I was impressed with Dayne, because like he did against us last year, he turned it up in the fourth quarter. He did everything he needed to do. The guy's a heck of a football player and I admire his competitiveness, because when the game gets tight, he takes it to another level."Coupled with Penn State's loss to Minnesota, Wisconsin (8-2, 6-1 Big Ten) has a half-game lead over the Nittany Lions and can clinch at least a share of the conference title with a victory over last-place Iowa (1-8, 0-6) on Saturday. Brees, only a junior, passed Jim Everett for second place in Purdue career passing. He threw for 350 yards and one touchdown and ran for a career-high 85 yards and two touchdowns, but he was intercepted twice by Jamar Fletcher. One was returned 34 yards for the clinching touchdown in the final minutes. Earlier, Nick Davis returned a kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown, and Dayne broke a 14-14 tie with a 41-yard TD run. "They're an excellent zone coverage team," Tiller said of Wisconsin's defense against the pass. "There wasn't much adjustment on their part to defend us. Some teams, when they play us, their defense changes dramatically. To Wisconsin's credit, they're very good in the secondary. We got jammed, got held at the line of scrimmage and couldn't get off them."The Badgers' first touchdown, a 3-yard pass from Brooks Bollinger to Dague Retzlaff, was set up by Fletcher's first interception late in the first quarter. "This was a good win," Badgers coach Barry Alvarez said. "We have a chance to defend a championship, and we determine it. We don't have to depend on someone else beating another team. If we win, we've got at least a piece of the championship and that was one of our goals this year."Dayne's touchdown was a Big Ten-record 69th of his career. "Great blocking was done for me. Once I scored, everybody was into the game and we never lost focus," Dayne said. "We just kept playing hard." With 32 carries, Dayne also set an NCAA record career with 1,088 rushing attempts, breaking Dorsett's record of 1,074. "I don't think there's any player that's ever meant more to a program," Alvarez said. "He's what our program is all about, blue collar, tough, hard-nosed, not doing it the easy way, just doing what you have to do to win." | ALSO SEE Boilermaker bliss: Brees will return for senior season
Dayne runs over Purdue, closes in on Williams' record
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