West title dreams can wait. Purdue's Jeff Brohm focused on beating Northwestern
There is a path for Purdue to play in its first Big Ten title game. But, Jeff Brohm isn’t focused on it.
“Well, once again, at this point in the season, a lot of things can happen,” said Brohm at his Monday press conference. “We understand that and we have to control ourselves.”
If Brohm won’t spell out the path for Purdue (6-4 overall; 4-3 Big Ten) to reach the Big Ten championship game, we will: Win its final two games (vs. Northwestern, at Indiana) and have Iowa lose one of its final two games (at Minnesota, vs. Nebraska).
That’s it. You see? Easy peasy.
• Join GoldandBlack.com for $1
• Purdue, Iowa seem best poised to win tangled Big Ten West
Of course, as a coach, Brohm is focused on what he controls. And that’s the task at hand: Beating Northwestern (1-9; 0-7), which visits West Lafayette on Saturday for a noon ET kickoff.
“So, home game against Northwestern is the challenge ahead,” he said. “That’s the only thing we can focus on or we’re not going to win a football game.”
Amazingly, Purdue hasn’t beaten the Wildcats in Ross-Ade Stadium since 2007, when Joe Tiller was still the Boilermaker coach. Purdue has lost the last five meetings vs. NU in West Lafayette and is 3-8 vs. the Wildcats in the last 11 meetings. Brohm knows the history. And, he knows the Wildcats are dangerous, despite languishing in the basement of the West division and riding a nine-game losing streak.
“Coach (Pat) Fitzgerald has done a great job,” said Brohm. “He has achieved a lot of success by doing it the right way, by just building a program of discipline and toughness and hard work.
“They’ve played some good football, at times. They played Penn State very close (17-7). They played Maryland very close (31-24). They played Ohio State very close (21-7). They have the capability to win football games and they understand that.”
NU also has lost a home game to FCS Southern Illinois (31-24) and fell in Evanston to Miami, Ohio (17-14). The Wildcats are coming off a 31-3 pasting at Minnesota, when they played four quarterbacks. The struggles are widespread for Fitzgerald’s 17th NU team, which opened the 2022 season with a 31-28 win in Ireland vs. Nebraska. The Wildcats haven’t tasted victory since that day on Aug. 27.
Purdue got back on track last week, dumping No. 21 Illinois in Champaign, 31-24, after the Boilermakers had lost two games in a row.
“We got to continue to tweak things here and there to make improvements to help our team, we have to work as hard as we have ever worked,” said Brohm. “We have got to keep the same hunger that we had this past week and the same drive to want to try to achieve something, and then we got to go out and play a football team that we have had a hard time with since I’ve been here (2-3 record).”
Purdue still can call itself “Big Ten West champs” if it wins out, along with Iowa–and anyone else in the division who finishes 6-3, which figures to be the record it will take. Still, the chance to play either Ohio State or Michigan in the Big Ten title game on Dec. 3 in Lucas Oil Stadium would be a big achievement for Brohm and the program. Just having Purdue in this position in mid-November is a nice feat.
“Well, that’s a good thing,” said Brohm. “I mean, I think that our guys have worked hard to put ourselves in a position to achieve hopefully a good season if we continue to play well. …
“I think it’s important to try to keep working hard to make improvements, tweak the team, make adjustments, and try to find a way to get better. That’s critical at this time of the year.”
