Purdue's Rose Bowl Season Reflections--O Lineman Kelly Kitchel

In our Sept. 15, 2025 edition of Rose Bowl Reflections with our special guest, former Boilermaker offensive lineman Kelly Kitchel. Kitchel talks about the 25th-year reunion of the Big Ten champs and Rose Bowl participants and how he remains tied to the Joe Tiller legacy with his former teammates and Arnette Tiller.

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Kitchel loves being “social director” of Purdue’s Rose Bowl reunions

Kelly Kitchel had the busiest and best weekends a Purdue Rose Bowl team alum could have. An offensive lineman for coach Joe Tiller from 1998-2001, “Kitch” mainly served on special teams during the 2000 championship season, but when his teammates gathered for festivities surrounding the Purdue-USC game, it was one big happy family.

He had dozens of former teammates stay at the Kitchel abode and even treated early arrivals to his daughter’s volleyball game on Thursday. On Friday, “Kitch” was serving as an assistant coach for West Lafayette High School in a victory over Rensselaer while his teammates were treated to a dinner compliments of the John Purdue Club.

After the dinner and while Kitchel was on the sidelines coaching the Red Devils to victory a time zone away, about three dozen teammates gathered at Kitchel house to start the get-together without him. The night ended in the early morning, about 3 a.m. as Kitchel recalls.

“It was so great seeing everybody, and we just sat around and told stories,” Kitch said. “It didn’t take long for us to be reminded about the cohesive unit we were back then, because we are still that way now.”

“I was always fighting to keep my job,” says Clopton, who spent a dozen years working in the John Purdue Club before entering private business in 2019. “Coach (Joe) Tiller was always telling the media when it asked, “Are you going to play that guy? He would say, ‘Nobody can beat him out, he’s our guy.’

“Coach sticking up for me and giving me that shot after dealing with three years of him mentally challenging us meant a lot. It meant so much that he trusted me to be able to help lead that defense as well.”

Clopton was one of a few senior leaders who had to help keep a talented group of freshmen, including future NFL players Shaun Phillips, Craig Terrill, Landon Johnson, Stuart Schweigert, and Gilbert Gardner, focused and moving in the right direction. 

But as he looks back to that memorable year, it was an off-season event that turned the tables for coach Joe Tiller’s fourth Boilermaker squad. And it was Tiller’s whistle during spring conditioning that may have turned the tide

“There’s one time that really stuck out to me,” the Lynwood, Illinois native recalled. “If everyone didn’t cross the line going full speed during a conditioning drill, Coach Tiller would say “you have another one.” After 12 or 15 of these, he kept saying, ‘didn’t count, didn’t count.’ 

Clopton said the team turned away from blaming one another for not running hard as Tiller wanted, to supporting each other. 

“We may have run 24 of those that day, but in the end, from the freshman all the way up to seniors, we realized we had to stick together,” says Clopton, who started his final 19 games as a Boilermaker.  

Clopton believes experiences like those may have made a difference at the Boilermakers’ darkest moments. That moment likely was halftime of the Michigan game, the third league game of the season, when Purdue trailed 28-10, and the defense was bending and breaking a lot in the game’s first 30 minutes.

“At that moment, every one of us had this aha moment,” said Clopton, who returned kickoffs for much of his first two years at Purdue, wearing jersey No. 2 and No. 85 before settling in with No. 23 his junior and senior seasons. “It was like, wait a minute. We got this, yeah, you know, and that confidence. We played a lot, a lot looser.

And the defense shut the No. 6 Wolverines down, holding the visitors to just three second-half points, and allowing the offense and the foot of kicker Travis Dorsch enough time to deliver the biggest comeback in Purdue football history en route to a 32-31 win. 

More: Rose Bowl Reflections: Chukky Okobi | Vinny Sutherland | A.T. Simpson | Scott Downing | Ben Smith | Craig Terrill | Akin Ayodele | Tim Stratton | Jim Chaney

Gold and Black Illustrated Archives–2000 season game stories

Game 1: No. 15 Purdue 48, Central Michigan 0
Game 2: No. 14 Purdue 45, Kent State 10
Game 3: No. 21 Notre Dame 23, No. 14 Purdue 21
Game 4: No. 21 Purdue 38, Minnesota 24
Game 5: Penn State 22, No. 22 Purdue 20
Game 6: Purdue 32, No. 6 Michigan 31
Game 7: No. 21 Purdue 41, No. 17 Northwestern 28
Game 8: No. 17 Purdue 30, Wisconsin 24 (ot)
Game 9: No. 16 Purdue 31, No. 12 Ohio State 27
Game 10: Michigan State 30, No. 9 Purdue 10
Game 11: No. 17 Purdue 41, Indiana 13
Game 12: No. 4 Washington 34, No. 14 Purdue 24