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bad things happen, you fight? I wanted to prove to my team that they could count on me and that I was the guy who could lead them.
    In the game against Minnesota, I went thirty-one for thirty-six, with 522 yards and six touchdowns, until Coach Tiller pulled me after the third quarter. We were winning the game 56–14 at the time, and he wanted to get the young guys some action. All those stats were school records, and we could have gone for the NCAA record books if we’d wanted to, but running up the score is not how you play the game. In reality, the outcome of the Notre Dame game wasn’t those two interceptions and the loss. It was the way it motivated me to play the next week—and helped me to turn a corner in my college career.
    We went 9–4 that season and beat fourth-ranked Kansas State 37–34 in the Alamo Bowl. But we still hadn’t made it to the Rose Bowl. That had been my ultimate goal as an incoming freshman. I knew the road to get there would not be easy, but anything worth fighting for never is.

Coming Back Stronger
    Fixing What You Break
    Two years later, I was a senior, and we were playing Ohio State. We’d had a frustrating year in 1999, going 7–5 and making it to the Outback Bowl but losing to a talented Georgia team in overtime. Now it was a new season, a new millennium, and there were great hopes that this was going to be our year.
    We started out with a disappointing 3–2 record. We had two heartbreaking road losses to Penn State and Notre Dame—both by just two points. The next game was in West Lafayette against Michigan, who was ranked sixth. Then we had to go on the road against Wisconsin and Northwestern, both ranked in the top twenty. After that we’d play at home against Ohio State, another top ten team. And we hadn’t beaten Michigan and Ohio State in forever, it seemed. Looking at this schedule could have been overwhelming, but that’s why the philosophy always needs to be one game at a time. Never look too far ahead, or you will end up tripping over something right in front of you. We could do this. We had to do this. We had no other choice if we wanted to be called champions.
    The first victim was Michigan, and it was a wild game—we won with a last-second field goal, 32–31. We then went to Northwestern and won. Next we traveled to Wisconsin and won in overtime. The team was rolling, and we were ready for the showdown: Ohio State at Purdue. We were ranked sixteen, they were twelve, and everybody was saying, “This game is for the Rose Bowl.” Whoever won that game had to win only one more game to clinch the Big Ten title.
    It was a late October night—a great night for football. The Purdue fans were into the game, and everyone was pumped to beat Ohio State. But we didn’t start well. Going into the fourth quarter, we were losing 20–10, and I had thrown three interceptions. This was not what I’d envisioned for this game. We had moved the ball well offensively; we just kept turning it over at the worst times. But in spite of all that, in the fourth quarter we were down only two scores.
    We started the fourth quarter with the ball and drove down the field. I threw a touchdown pass to wide receiver John Standeford: 20–17, Ohio State. We got the ball back, and I threw another touchdown pass, this time to wide receiver Vinny Sutherland. Now we were winning 24–20 with about six minutes left in the game. The fans were going wild. The defense stepped up, and we got the ball back with a chance to run out the clock.
    We ran a few plays and watched the clock. It could not tick down fast enough. The number one priority in this situation was to take care of the football. Whatever we did, we couldn’t give them a short field or any momentum with a turnover. The next play I dropped back to pass and was immediately flushed out of the pocket by a blitzing linebacker running free up the middle. I scrambled to my right and thought, Be smart. Throw the ball away. As I pulled the ball back