Doyel: Jeff Brohm has Purdue football back faster than anyone dreamed

WEST LAFAYETTE – Jeff Brohm didn’t come here expecting miracles. Not of himself, and not of the Purdue football team. He wanted to get to a bowl game this season, yes he did, but did he honestly think that was possible? Did he think something as beautiful as the sight of Ross-Ade Stadium emptying after the Boilermakers’ 31-24 victory on Saturday against Indiana, tens of thousands of Purdue fans leaving the bleachers to celebrate on the field, could happen this fast?

I can’t tell you, honestly I cannot, but what I can do is put you in the room with Brohm after this victory that gave the Boilermakers possession of the Old Oaken Bucket for the first time since 2012 — and their sixth win of the season. Purdue, so awful for so long, will go bowling in Brohm's first season.

Afterward, someone in the media wanted to know: Did Brohm expect it to happen this fast?

Brohm didn’t say anything, not at first. He was too busy giggling. There’s your answer. Or maybe, here’s your answer. Because when Brohm did start talking, he didn’t say: Yes. No, here’s what he said:

“I knew we had some challenges ahead of us,” he said.

He was grinning, because he knows: After too many years in the muck, Purdue football is on firm footing. It has happened so fast, and so thoroughly, that Purdue hasn’t just narrowed the gap with Indiana. Purdue has completely closed the gap, and opened a new one.

Purdue is the best Big Ten program in the state, is what I’m saying. Not merely because of Saturday, but because of the body of work presented in 2017 by the Boilermakers — and by the Hoosiers, who in four months have squandered all that momentum bequeathed them from 2013-16 by a Big Ten football coach who was so bad, I’m going to do Darrell Hazell a favor and not name him.

Indiana had its shot to bury the Boilermakers, and Indiana blew it. The best the Hoosiers can hope for now is that someone bigger than Purdue, a football school with bigger coaching salaries and a bigger stadium and a bigger recruiting base and budget, saves Indiana from having to deal with Brohm by hiring him away from the Boilermakers. And let’s be clear about this: Some school is going to try. Maybe not this season, maybe it’s too soon for the likes of Tennessee or Arkansas to pursue him, but the only way Brohm stays long-term at Purdue is if he says no in the next year or two to another school.

The offer is coming, and in the abstract, Purdue fans should love this. Because what’s the alternative? That athletic director Mike Bobinski hired a coach nobody wants? Purdue’s been there, done that. But enough about Danny Hope. And I’ve already said I wasn’t going to name Darrell Hazell.

Anyway. Indiana football isn’t a dumpster fire, nobody at the IndyStar is saying that. But IU was positioned to dominate Purdue in football this year and beyond, and it didn’t (and won’t) happen. Indiana took a small step back this season, and with so many seniors leaving the strength of its team — the defense — another step back could happen in 2018. We’ll see.

What we saw Saturday? One football program having fun — Purdue faked a punt, tried a flea flicker and scored twice on jet sweeps — and one whose day can be summed up by a scene late in the third quarter:

Purdue running back Markell Jones, the 2014 IndyStar Mr. Football winner, was chewing up Indiana in the third quarter, ripping off runs of 11 and 24 and 16 and 10 en route to a career-best 217 yards on 31 carries. When he broke a tackle by one of the leading tacklers in IU history, linebacker Tegray Scales, for an 8-yard run that ended at the IU sideline, TV cameras caught IU coach Tom Allen in anguish — the Hoosiers’ former defensive coordinator pleading with someone on the IU defense to please, please, please make a tackle.

Oh, what happened Saturday wasn’t just a game. It was a message, and it was delivered with the subtlety of 250-pound Purdue freshman linebacker Derrick Barnes’ tackle late in the first half. IU’s 180-pound Whop Philyor returned a kickoff 25 yards to the IU 29, where he was vaporized by Barnes. You’ve heard of pancake blocks, for offensive linemen? This was a pancake hit. Barnes hit Philyor in the chest and Philyor just sort of … vanished.

The Hoosiers hit hard too, of course. Running back Cole Gest, all 5-8 of him, encountered Purdue safety Navon Mosley at the end of an 11-yard run and hit Mosley like a cannonball, exploding him three yards into the distance. Three plays later, 6-6, 240-pound IU quarterback Richard Lagow slowed down at the end of one scramble to stay in bounds so he could drive a stiff-arm into Purdue linebacker Danny Ezechukwu.

This game was passionate and relevant, the best Bucket game in years and the only series meeting, ever — in 120 Purdue-IU games — with bowl eligibility on the line for both. It just wasn’t all that competitive in the second half, when Purdue built a 31-10 lead before going conservative, letting off the gas, dropping an onside kick and allowing the Hoosiers to get within 31-24 with 61 seconds left before Ezechukwu snagged IU’s last onside kick to seal the win.

This thing Brohm is building, it’s happening so fast — on the field, and off it. Starved for a legit Big Ten football team, Purdue fans have lifted the team’s average attendance from 35,520 in 2016 to 48,953 this season, a one-year improvement of 13,433 per game — best in the nation.

Purdue’s defense went from allowing 38.3 points per game in 2016 to 18.9 ppg entering Saturday, also best in the nation. In league play, much the same crew that allowed 42.6 ppg to Big Ten foes in 2016 had cut that to 18.6 ppg this season, an improvement of 24 ppg. Best in the nation — in 15 years.

It’s happening fast, and it’s not finished. Hell, it’s just getting started. Brohm is an offensive mastermind, his teams at Western Kentucky setting all sorts of scoring records, but he took one look at the returning Purdue offense and decided to dial it back. He went easy at first on the gadgets and funk, and heavy on fundamentals.

“The fact that we’re able to now pass the ball at least a little bit and be effective has helped our football team,” Brohm said, a calculus whiz embracing arithmetic. “For a while there I was probably a little conservative because I was worried we were going to drop more passes. (And then) I said, ‘OK, we’re going to cut his thing loose and be aggressive.’”

Give Brohm a few recruiting classes, and he will have his quarterbacks throwing to his receivers. For now he has a young offense that should only get better, what with just two seniors starting and only three among the 28 players on the team’s two-deep (and occasionally three- or four-deep) offensive roster.

Purdue is back, and it’s not going anywhere. Not unless Brohm does.

And it’s too soon to leave, Jeff Brohm. Don’t be that guy. Make yourself comfortable in West Lafayette.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.

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