Brohm Leaves Purdue For Home … Now What?
The Boilermaker football program is in a much better place now than when it was in 2017 when Jeff Brohm arrived on the scene.
On Wednesday after six seasons in West Lafayette, Brohm announced he was leaving to return to his alma mater to be the head coach at Louisville.
The timing is never good in these transitions and it certainly isn’t for Purdue.
It has less than a month to prep for Brian Kelly’s 16th-ranked LSU Tigers and a date in the Citrus Bowl Jan. 2 in Orlando.
In a somewhat surprising move, Purdue named co-offensive coordinator/quarterback coach Brian Brohm its interim head coach for the bowl game. Brian did serve as the Boilermakers’ interim head coach for one game when Jeff was sidelined with COVID.
With just a few weeks before the bowl game, keeping a majority of Jeff’s coaching staff intact was probably paramount.
There are no hard feelings between Purdue and the Brohm family nor should there be. After all, Brohm resurrected the Boilermaker program practically from the ashes and I’m not kidding.
Prior to his arrival, Purdue had won a total of nine games in four years, 31 in eight years if you combined the previous coaches’ tenures (Danny Hope and Darrell Hazell).
Brohm did the improbable, winning 36 games (losing 34) and guiding Purdue to four bowl appearances. He was 6-7 against teams in the top 25 and 3-2 against those in the top 5.
Arguably the high point of Brohm’s Purdue career came this season when he led the Boilermakers to their second straight eight-win season, including a Big Ten West Division title and the school’s first-ever appearance in the Big Ten Championship Game.
He also put bodies in the seats of Ross-Ade Stadium. Every game this past season was at or near capacity, which is 57,236. Since 2016 attendance grew from 34,451 to more than 57,000 this season.
Brohm definitely put a memorable stamp on the Boilermaker program and rightfully so needs to be mentioned alongside Purdue greats like Jack Mollenkopf, Jim Young and Joe Tiller.
As a result, Purdue is a far different program than it was when Brohm arrived and you can bet the national perception of the program has changed for the better as well.
Thanks to the leadership and commitment of athletic director Mike Bobinkski and the university, Purdue now is competitive with its Big Ten brethren when it comes to coaches’ salaries. However, Brohm’s estimated $5.1 million per year base salary ranks him close to the bottom third of the conference compared to the upper half when Purdue sweetened the pot in 2018 when he turned Louisville down.
There has also been a huge commitment to upgrade the football facilities.
Permanent lights have been installed along with one of the biggest video scoreboards you will find anywhere.
As we speak, Phase One of Ross-Ade Stadium’s $45 million renovation project has begun, which will include closing in the south end of the stadium, constructing a pair of tunnels that the teams will enter and exit the playing field and a nutrition center just north of the stadium.
No longer is Purdue the school that has the reputation of being “cheap” and not investing in its football program, quite the contrary.
Add the recently inked Big Ten media rights deals, which will add somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 million to $100 per year per school, and this is an entirely different playing field than what most Purdue faithful are accustomed to seeing.
That’s why now you could make a strong case for the Purdue job as being attractive than it ever has been before.
Plus, the Big Ten will add UCLA and USC in a couple of years, and the conference impact will be felt more nationwide than any other conference.
A must for the new boss would be to be offensive minded. Purdue’s program has success when it has a wide-open offense. It cannot consistently line up and play smash-mouth football against Big Ten powers and expect to win. Remember Mike Alstott, perhaps the school’s greatest running back, never was on a team that had more than five wins in a season.
Purdue is in a unique place right now. Not since Mollenkopf left after the 1969 season has the program been in this position where it is filling its head coaching vacancy coming off a winning season.
Things are rolling at Purdue.
Fans are attending football games in a manner not seen since Tiller was roaming the sidelines.
The stadium is undergoing a major facelift with Phase One paid for and Phase Two already in the works.
There is a revenue stream like never before.
Fans are excited about Purdue football, really excited and you have to give them reason to continue to be excited and not worrying about what many may perceive as a downward trajectory now that Brohm has departed. That negative mindset is understandable when you consider who Purdue has hired after its successful coaches.
Bob DeMoss followed Mollenkopf and went 13-18.
Leon Burtnett came after Young and 21-34-1.
Hope followed Tiller and was 22-27.
You will hear a lot of candidates’ names on social media. Just don’t believe much of what you hear.
I can assure you Bobinski will make a very good hire. He’s a Notre Dame graduate who fully understands the importance of football to an athletic department and knows he has to take advantage of the state the Purdue football program is currently in.
I think it will be a quick hire. It has to be.
With 1,300-plus players in the transfer portal, a new coach can arrive and fill any and all needs in a hurry. Plus, there is a recruiting class to lock in and players to recruit. Time is ticking and the longer you wait, the more you get behind.
As for names, here are some …
Garrett Riley – TCU’s offensive coordinator
Bill O’Brien – Alabama’s offensive coordinator
Todd Monken – Georgia’s offensive coordinator
Dan Mullen – former Florida head coach
Dave Clawson – Wake Forest head coach
Matt Campbell – Iowa State head coach
I do not think Bobinski will hire a Mid-American Conference coach simply based on what a train wreck Hazell was and I do not think he will hire someone with former Purdue ties like say a Kevin Sumlin. The former Boilermaker linebacker was Texas A&M’s former head coach and a member of Tiller’s staff at Purdue.
Syracuse head coach Dino Baber also has Purdue ties, having been on Jim Colletto’s staff, but he doesn’t do a lot for me.
I believe Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun was interviewed by Purdue when it eventually decided to go with Brohm. Calhoun doesn’t seem to be a fit considering he loves to run the ball a ton, plus he’s an Air Force graduate.
Long shots would be current Purdue co-defensive coordinator Mark Hagen, who is a heck of a recruiter and knows the state like the back of his hand having starred at IU, and Ohio State assistant coach Brian Hartline.
So who will Purdue hire to replace Brohm? We will know by this time next week at the latest.
I will say this … the pressure is on Bobinski to deliver another winner on the Purdue sideline. He did it before with Brohm and there’s no reason to believe he won’t do the same thing this time around.
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