WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue’s Dorien Bryant may finally be ready to live up to his potential.

The senior wide receiver responded to a challenge from coach Joe Tiller by catching nine passes for a career-high 167 yards and two touchdowns in Saturday’s 31-6 win over Iowa. The performance was good enough to earn Bryant a co-Big Ten offensive player of the week honor.

Tiller told Bryant he hadn’t been playing up to his potential in recent weeks.

“He came to me and said you’re better than what you’re showing,” Bryant said. “He talked about all the knocks against me.”

Those knocks include not playing well in big games, dropping too many passes and being unable to fight through double teams. Tiller has stayed on Bryant’s case, often saying he’s the most talented receiver he’s coached in his 11 years at Purdue, yet never calling him the best.

“Dorien reminds me of a young, spirited colt,” Tiller said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. “Until you break him, you can’t ride him to the finish line. Sometimes, training comes into effect a little earlier, and sometimes, you have to work with them a little bit longer.”

Sometimes, according to Tiller and Bryant, the challenge is listening.

“You have to understand the individual,” Tiller said. “You have to find that hot button, and sometimes, even that hot button is not what it is when you’re trying to hit it. A lot of it is the person that’s receiving the message, are they in a listening mode or not.”

Bryant was ready to hear Tiller, but might not have been a few years ago.

“He approached me in a way that maybe a younger player, or a younger me, might have taken as, ‘Why is he saying anything to me?’ But I know he’s only doing it to help me,” Bryant said.

Tiller said Bryant has matured.

“I didn’t say much different to him than I had said before, but he’s older and he listens a little bit more,” Tiller said.

Now, Bryant is back on track. With 57 catches for 670 yards, he leads the Big Ten in receptions per game and is fifth in the conference in yards per game. He ranks second in the conference in all-purpose yards with 171 yards per game.

He’s also climbing the Big Ten and Purdue career charts. He’s tied with David Williams of Illinois for third place on the all-time Big Ten list with 262 career catches. He trails Taylor Stubblefield (325 catches) and John Standeford (266) on both the Big Ten and Purdue career reception lists.

He also is third in school history in receiving yards (3,282), good for seventh all-time in Big Ten.

Still, he at times has disappeared from the offense. He had two catches for minus 4 yards against Ohio State and six catches for 57 yards and a touchdown against Michigan, though his score came in the final minute against Michigan’s reserves.

Bryant doesn’t want to make a habit of needing to bounce back.

“I don’t want to have a good game, then fall off, then have another good game,” he said. “I’ve got to be consistent.”