TJ Bush

But you're seeing it across the board.

You're seeing it, uh, Carter Mintz, TJ Bush, their interior guys, which-

Yeah

... don't have a lot of fanfare, um, have really shown up.

Now I mentioned the right tackle should be back for this game, but this is not a very good run blocking unit or at least it hasn't been so far.

So if you told me that Minnesota's defensive line which features T.J. Bush who is fourth in the Big Ten in tackles for loss and tied for the Big Ten lead in sacks, features Riley Sunroom who is fifth in the Big Ten in tackles for loss with five and a half, still has Anthony Smith.

You saw Jackson Howard make some plays last week.

Carter Menz, don't forget about the Far, or yeah, the Fargo kid up there.

Like, he's gonna get 20 touches, as I talked about earlier.

He leads all Big Ten tailbacks in missed tackles forced.

So it comes down to can you win up front again? Anthony Smith, TJ Bush, Riley Sunroom, Nacron Crowder, uh, Carter Menz, Jackson Howard, if they dictate the terms of engagement, they are going to come away with a five on one record.

If you allow Purdue to spread you out, and then not get after the quarterback, and not tackle Femi Ejeboye in space, not tackle one of the slot receivers such as Xavier Townsend, Purdue's gonna score 28 points on you pretty easily.

Why doesn't Jackson Howard play more?

They're really deep on the defensive line right now, where he had been playing a stand-up defensive end position for Minnesota, and that is where they brought in TJ Bush in the off-season.

They used some of that Coy Parrish money that they had allocated.

And now that he's at Oregon, they went out and spent on a pass rusher in TJ Bush, and he's now tied for the Big Ten lead in sacks.

He's fourth in tackles for loss in the conference.

They've also got a kid from North Dakota named Carter Menz, who's also a very good pass rusher.

But they're pretty deep up there right now, PA.

Well, yeah.

Which, obviously, when you cater to that, other things are going to have to give.

Which, you know, we've seen TJ Bush on the other side of the line making plays all season long.

And...

I mean, that's just a testament of what happens when you game plan so hard for an all-American defensive end.

Seven o'clock Saturday, uh, they look to stay hot and, uh, stay undefeated in the Big Ten, and they are at Purdue on KFAN.

Uh, when you were in studio with us, which was really cool, uh, you, you told us to look out for new guy TJ Bush when the season starts, and holy cow, against Michigan, uh, TJ was a menace.

What, uh, what do you like about his game?

Mm-hmm.

"Let's make him beat us with his arm," and they did, and they were pretty passive.

Like, they were not aggressive with that group that they have up front with Anthony Smith and TJ Bush and Jackson Howard and, you know, Carter Menz and all those guys.

And I think they said, "We're not gonna do that again.

If we're gonna go down, we're gonna go down being aggressive." Uh, Danny Collins basically said that after the Washington game, you know, that, "Look, we, we wanna be aggressive every week," and, it, you know, he didn't...