2014 Week 2

Heading into the 2014 season, it was believed that the Chippewa offense would be the strong point of this team, however, through two games, it's the Chippewa defense that has been dominating. For the 2nd consecutive week, the defense held their opponent to under 100 yards of offense, limiting Purdue to only 84 yards. The front seven was in the face of the Purdue QB all game and sacked him five times. "We are obviously a confident group right now" said Defensive Coordinator, Danny Bryant. "We want to set the tone of the game early on and we have been able to do that in our first two games. Stopping the opponent and getting the ball back to our offense is going to allow us to win games and that's exactly what we did today."

The offense certainly improved from week 1, but it's hard not to wonder if losing Offensive Coordinator Eric Taylor, was a bigger loss than previously thought? With any change to a staff comes a learning process and it's pretty evident that new Offensive Coordinator, Steed Lobotzke and Head Coach, Rob Carlson are still figuring things out on offense. "Overall I thought we played better offensively, but 3 INT's really hurt us and kept this game close" said Carlson. "We were able to move the ball well, but just couldn't find the endzone enough." The three INT's came from QB Cooper Rush who was given the start after Kater struggled in week 1. Carlson was happy with Rush, but is looking for more consistency from the Sophomore QB. "You know, I thought Cooper played well. He threw for over 200 yards and was only sacked once, but I'm sure he'll tell you he wants some of those throws back. It's hard to win games when you turn the ball over, but thankfully our defense picked up the slack."

Rush finished the game 19/34 passing for 223 yards, 1TD and 3 INT's. As you might expect, Senior Titus Davis was Rush's favorite target catching 6 passes for 85 yards. Look for Rush to get the start next week and for Davis to continue to reap the rewards. Purdue was able to keep the ground game in check holding Saylor Lavallii to 67 yards on 20 carries. Lavallii and Maurice Shoemaker-Gilmore each scored a TD on the ground.

The win improves CMU to 2-0 on the season. CMU has now won 8 games in a row dating back to last season. The Chippewas have another BCS test as they travel to Lawrence, KS to take on the Jayhawks on Saturday.