Tom Bradley bleeds enthusiasm. He soaks it up like a sponge, until his body can hold no more. And then, it drips off him like rain off a just-washed car.

So Saturday, after a week where the enthusiasm didn't arrive until Wednesday, the man responsible for constructing Penn State's defense piped himself up and, for the sake of the Nittany Lions, put the fun back into football — or, at least, postgame football conferences.

He had a right. His boys had just swatted away any doubt that Penn State would fail to upset Purdue, which was ranked 22nd at the time.

His defense, knowing it was up 22-20 and nary a field goal away from losing, had just stopped Drew Brees, who actually has his own newsletter, from advancing his troops far enough to make that possible.

"First, I direct traffic," Bradley said of the final play, a Hail Mary that faltered in the right corner of the end zone. "I didn't know whether to prevent or what the heck to play. And then I thought about getting cute, and then I thought I better not because Joe (Paterno) was standing a few steps away from me. He would have whacked me one. I was kind of stuck."

During that drive, hero Titcus Pettigrew dropped a sure interception, one that hit him square in the 9 embedded on his jersey.

"One thing about them is no matter what happened, they never quit," Bradley said. "They never quit. They hung in there until the end. Today, we got some breaks. Some things went our way. They dropped some passes. We were in the right coverage a couple of times.

I am going to kill Titcus," Bradley said, laughing.

Ironically enough, the Hail Mary came at Penn State's 45, where the chance for a 62-yard field goal loomed. But Boilermakers coach Joe Tiller took the high road, electing to trust Brees' arm, instead of the leg of Travis Dorsch, who earlier had connected on field goals of 44 and 25 yards.

The Hail Mary — and Tiller's decision — was negated, of course, when Lions safety James Boyd swatted it harmlessly away.

"I just got in position to knock the ball down, to make sure nobody got it," Boyd said.

"We were having fun," Boyd added. "That was one of the main things we said, just to have fun no matter what the outcome was going to be."

The secondary rendered speedy senior Vinny Sutherland nearly useless. Although his 94 yards nearly equaled his average of 97 per game, he made only five catches, and those statistics were padded slightly. Sutherland caught a 39-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter and had a meaningless 24-yard reception on a drive in the second quarter that ended in a punt.

"No. 14 (Sutherland) is one of the fastest people you're ever going to see," Lions cornerback Bhawoh Jue said. "To chase him around the field all day and pretty much shut him down is a great feeling."

The front four had its share of laughs, too. It laughed collectively at Purdue tailback Montrell Lowe, the Boilermakers' other offensive weapon (if there is such a thing).

While the secondary suffocated Sutherland, the quartet of Anthony Adams, Jimmy Kennedy, Justin Kurpeikis and Michael Haynes were busy limiting Lowe to less than three yards per carry and zero touchdowns.

"I thought the defense played an outstanding game," Paterno said. "I think it would be pretty hard to play much better than that against a club that talented offensively. With as good a quarterback and as well organized and as well coached as that team is offensively, I think to do what we did was just about as well as you could do."