Purdue's Perfect 7-6 Season
Feature image from PurdueSports.com
It’s very weird for any fanbase to have consensus about anything (just ask Star Wars fans), let alone a college football fanbase to collectively consider 7 wins a “successful” season. Hell, Danny Hope got fired immediately after a 7-win season. Purdue fans were trained by Joe Tiller’s decade to expect a bowl berth, consider 8 wins a success, and compete for a conference title at least once per four-year recruiting class. Celebrating 7 wins the epitome of mediocrity, right?
But changing expectations are weird, and extremely contextual, and often never seem to follow the same set of rules. And these feelings we’re collectively experiencing are real, so all we can do is resist the urge to assign engineering logic around them and embrace how good things feel right now.
Purdue just finished a 7-6 football season, and it was the perfect season that absolutely none of us could have charted when Jeff Brohm was hired a year ago.
If we’re being honest, it was very hard to imagine Danny Hope ever cracking through that 7-win ceiling. Even that 2011 7-win season started with a disappointing loss to Rice, no-show blowouts against Notre Dame/Michigan/Wisconsin, and almost-accidental wins against a ranked Illinois and a down Ohio State (the Danny Hope Special). A year later, Purdue brass fired Hope because mediocrity wasn’t enough.
Little did we know what was coming.
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After being used as Butch Jones’ leverage, Morgan Burke tapped Kent State’s Darrell Hazell to lead Purdue football, and the entire fanbase was fairly happy. Hazell had just coached in a January bowl game (GoDaddy.com Bowl, but still), Purdue finally began paying at Big Ten median levels (gotta start somewhere), and Boiler AD brass kept talking about investments for mythical facilities upgrades that were much appreciated (but a decade too late). In theory, Purdue was taking steps to ensure the Tiller Standard would remain alive and well in West Lafayette.
Four years, nine total wins, only four FBS wins.
The only worry the BS Elders had about Hazell back in 2013 was the lack of a playing style designed for Purdue’s in-built recruiting disadvantages. Purdue will never land the biggest or strongest recruits, but can win with speed and deception. In the end, Hazell’s insistence on playing Tresselball drove Purdue to the worst four-year stretch in Purdue football’s 130-year history.
The Tiller Standard was a distant memory, and Cowboy Joe’s tenure looked more and more like a fluke.
But the foundation was there, to Morgan Burke’s credit, in the truly remarkable facilities upgrades. The trio of new AD Mike Bobinski, Purdue President Mitch Daniels, and the Board of Trustees chairman Michael Berghoff zeroed in on the man (identified by brilliant Boiled Sports staff) who could bring back Purdue’s speed and deception, mold the Boilermakers in to an aggressive and entertaining brand of football, and re-establish the Tiller Standard.
It took a few extra phone calls by Daniels, but Jeff Brohm accepted the role at the helm of Purdue football in December 2016. Not just as caretaker, but as a steward into a future of excitement (and, eventually, contention).
Enter the perfect season.
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We’ve seen a legend wane, we’ve seen sustained mediocrity, we’ve seen irrelevance, and we’ve seen the depths of incompetence.
And, now, we’ve seen restoration, and it came in a 7-win package.
Brohmball brought back Purdue’s reputation as a fun, pass-happy, trickster team. Nick Holt, the defensive coordinator who purportedly underwhelmed at USC and was fired at Washington, built a top 25 senior-laden aggressive defense that was infinitely more than the sum of its parts. Purdue didn’t back down against last year’s Heisman winner, blew out a bowl-bound SEC team on the road, and ended the longest Oaken Bucket drought in Boilermaker football history.
Purdue made a bowl, and though it wasn’t in an alumni-preferred destination like Nashville or New York City, they were on network TV in a prime-time spot. The Foster Farms Bowl was hyped as one of 2017’s most exciting matchups, pitted as a back-and-forth battle between Arizona’s powerful offense and Purdue’s stout defense. Purdue’s defense, and Purdue’s offensive creativity (and QB Elijah Sindelar’s resilience playing through a torn ACL) came out on top as the Boilers notched their first bowl win since 2011.
Yes, there were stumbles. The Boilers lost back-to-back games versus Nebraska and Rutgers by a combined three points, and could have easily been an 8- or 9-win team. But Jeff Brohm would have almost certainly been poached in that scenario.
Louisville, mid-tier (and rich) SEC teams like Tennessee, Mizzou, Arkansas, or South Carolina, the kings of the ACC like Clemson or Florida State, or college football powerhouses Florida, Alabama, Georgia, or Texas are the true collegiate threats to hire Brohm away. Most weren’t looking in Brohm’s direction due to “only” winning 6 games in 2017, while Tennessee was a real threat thwarted by administrative chaos.
In other words – if those Nebraska/Rutgers three points would have swung Purdue’s way, Jeff Brohm very likely would have been Tennessee’s first (post-Gruden) phone call.
But Purdue won 6 games and their bowl, Brohm is staying in West Lafayette for (at least) another year, and a promising 2018 freshman class is coming with him. And 2019 is shaping up to be a doozy, built around local 4-star defensive end George Karlaftis passing up Alabama, Ohio State, Miami,and Notre Dame to commit to Brohm’s Purdue vision.
Purdue (with Mike Bobinski, Mike Berghoff, Mitch Daniels at the helm) saw Morgan Burke’s facilities upgrade through, hired the perfect coach in Jeff Brohm, allowed Brohm full control over his staff and on-field decisions, competed (and won) immediately, played an entertaining and unpredictable brand of aggressive football, beat IU and brought the Bucket home, won a bowl game, and will be keeping Brohm for another season. (And, hopefully, many many more than that).
Winning percentages, close losses, and on-field imperfections be damned. Purdue’s up-and-down 2017 season wasn’t anything like what Boilermaker faithful thought it would be, and ended up being as close to a perfect season as we could have hoped.
It’s now Purdue administration’s job to build on this foundation and grow the Boilermaker football culture. Commit to raises and extensions, show Jeff Brohm and his staff that Purdue is that long-term destination, and trust the coaching staff to mold Purdue football into greatness. Make sure it’s not only a matter of money that allows other schools to poach the Boilermakers’ coach.
(And also please please please make the South End Zone less embarrassing.)
Here’s to Joe Tiller’s vision being resurrected under Jeff Brohm’s watchful eyes. Here’s to the return of Purdue being synonymous with entertaining football. Here’s to the Brohm Standard at Purdue.
Let’s hope it never ends.
