Wednesday Boilermakings

A salute to the band - I found this on the GBI football forum this morning, but the wife of All-American Marching Band director Jay Gephart lost her battle with breast cancer overnight at age 49. To me, college football is not college football without the band behind it. In fact, one of my favorite moments on a football Saturday is "I Am An American". I was there at the first game after September 11 when Roy Johnson, with a tremble in his voice, broke the silence of 55,000 people with those words. Naturally, dry eyes were few. Mr. Gephart has done a fine job of taking care of the Purdue All-American Marching Band since 1995 and as Director of Bands since 2006. I offer him my condolences today.

Volleyball ranked 19^th - The Purdue volleyball program continues to grow its national profile, earning a #19 preseason ranking after last season's sweet 16 performance.

Big Ten Network football tour stops by West Lafayette - I really like what Boilerdowd pointed out this morning: We kept things vanilla and even went to a silent snap count for Elliott. I like the fact we were covering up audibles for Elliott simply because it shows we have confidence that this offense can run audibles. Here are some of the highlights from the show, which will air a bunch of times today:

College Fantasy Football - I posted this link a few days ago, but there has been some interest in creating a league for Hammer & Rails readers. I think I will go ahead and do this and see what happens. Just follow the link and look for the league: Hammer and Rails.