Kyle Orton steps up to the ball, pinned against his own 3-yard line with a rabid horde of Notre Dame faithful behind him. The Purdue quarterback is too busy to notice.
Having broken the huddle quickly, Orton immediately sees a Fighting Irish defense scrambling to cover the five-wide set the Boilermakers have spread across the field.
The mental gears start racing.
Orton barks out a route change and one of his receivers goes in motion to the left side of the field, throwing an already flustered defense into chaos. A cornerback panics and yells for the safety to come up and cover the receiver.
The ball is snapped and Taylor Stubblefield's eyes light up. The safety is now indisposed and one of the most dangerous receivers in the country is in man-coverage down the sideline. Stubblefield runs straight ahead and burns by the corner who has just lost his deep help.
The rest is up to Orton. It's like asking him to breathe.
The senior signal caller already knows what's happened downfield. Orton lofts the ball effortlessly and hits his streaking receiver in stride at the Purdue 40. Stubblefield points to the sky before he even hits midfield and a few seconds later it's a 97-yard touchdown.
Pretty typical stuff for the Boilermakers' Heisman threat.
"He's probably the best quarterback in the country," Penn State safety Andrew Guman said. "We have our hands full."
To say the least. Heading into Purdue's matchup with the Nittany Lions Saturday, Orton's numbers are what you'd expect from someone talked of in such reverent tones. A 70 percent completion rate, 1,367 yards, 17 touchdowns and not one interception. All in just four games.
The stats can speak for themselves, but in this case they don't begin to tell Orton's story. The bomb to Stubblefield against the Irish showed his football I.Q. -- his ability to read defenses and adapt on the fly. Orton estimates that he calls some sort of audible on 40 percent of the plays he runs.
More than that, he's a perfectionist. He uses the term pretty literally.
"We weren't perfect [against Notre Dame]," Orton said. "We were 21 for 31 passes, so we're obviously not perfect. Our offensive line is playing great football, but there is still work to do. When we don't think like that, that's when we're going to get in trouble. When we stop and smell the roses is when we're going to get beat."
It wasn't always like this for Orton. He was always a solid quarterback, but not the elite passer he is now. He was largely inconsistent early in his career, but solidified himself by throwing a game-winning score at Michigan State off the bench his sophomore year and earning MVP honors in the Sun Bowl that season.
For Purdue coach Joe Tiller it might as well be a different person out there.
"When I think back to 2002, it seems like a decade ago," Tiller said. "I don't really remember [Kyle] struggling that much now. Last season and this season so far, he's been steady, so I don't think about his struggles of three or four years ago. He's matured in the offense, really understands it and has great command of the game and what we're doing offensively."
Tiller said that Orton's success has come from a willingness to operate in his system that has put the Boilermakers back on the map since he arrived in West Lafayette in 1997. There is, however, a difference between succeeding in a system and succeeding because of a system.
According to Tiller, Orton rates high in the three intangibles he said he looks for in a quarterback -- competitiveness, intelligence and demeanor. Combine that with his tangible skills that include an extraordinary arm, and Orton becomes a handful for any defense to handle.
None have been able to yet.
And though success has drawn incredible hype to Orton, enough to require a security team to escort the Boilermakers back to the team bus, he remains what Tiller describes as a "salt of the earth, typical Midwesterner."
"He came up to me the other day," Tiller said. "And he goes, 'You know coach, this is a ball. I'm having fun. I recognize this as a great time in my life and I want to enjoy all of it.' "
There's plenty more where that came from.
