On Sunday, August 30, 1998 I was walking around campus with a friend of mine from high school. It was on this day that I would get to experience college football for the first time as a college student.
It was also the first career start or a sophomore quarterback named Drew Brees, who very few people knew.
It would be an interesting game. Back then teams only played 11 games in the regular season (12 if you managed to play a game at Hawaii), and compared to today, scheduling was a bit like the wild
west. On that day Purdue would be playing in Los Angeles against USC in what was a proto-week zero game. The game was officially called the “Pigskin Classic”, a season opener that was often scheduled only a couple of months in advance featuring teams either expected to be a national contender or a team that had a fantastic year the previous season.
Purdue was in the latter category. In 1997 behind first year coach Joe Tiller and his “basketball on grass” offense Purdue took the Big Ten by surprise. Coming into the 1997 season Purdue was bad. We entered the year on a run of 12 straight losing seasons, and after losing to Toledo we expected more of the same. The Boilers ripped off six straight wins, beat Notre Dame for the first time in 12 years, and was bowl eligible before November. They would end up going 9-3, which was good enough to get one of those season opening invites that served as preseason bowl games.
The game with USC was hastily added to the schedule as a 12th game and season opener. It was a big deal, too. I had attended games for years to that point as I was growing up, but here I was, listening to us face mighty USC on the radio as my friend Laura and I went around campus. At the time, the idea of “Purdue football” and “Preseason Expectations” was as foreign as it would feel in the present day.
Purdue lost that day. They led 17-10 at halftime before wilting in the heat of the LA Coliseum and falling to the Trojans 27-17. That rematch of Purdue’s lone Rose Bowl appearance to that point was significant though. The team itself even toward the Rose Bowl with the goal of eventually playing there after the previous season’s breakthrough.
Brees had seen action in seven games during the breakthrough 1997 season as he was Billy Dicken’s primary backup. He completed a modest 19 of 42 passes for 232 yards and zero TDs with a single interception. After an ACL injury in high school he fell into Purdue’s lap. His gaudy stats at Austin Westlake high school were ignored by the in-state powers. It didn’t matter that after his junior year knee injury he was the Texas High School 5A Most Valuable Offensive Player in 1996, leading Westlake to a 16-0 season and state title. He was an injury risk, and only Purdue and Kentucky, to programs far from the heights of college football at the time, seriously recruited him.
Brees was 30 of 52 for 248 yards, 2 TDs, and 2 INTs that day, but both TDs came in the first quarter as the Boilers got off to a fast start behind him. Purdue was undone by a kickoff return for a TD by Chad Morton and eventual Heisman winner Carson Palmer coming off the bench to lead a second half comeback for USC. That first half for Brees saw him impressively go 18-of-27 for 148 yards and two scores, but he came back down to earth with a pair of interceptions and a lost fumble in the second half.
It was a modest beginning, but every journey has a beginning. Thus weekend we will see that journey end as Brees will officially be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, almost 28 years later.
I have always felt a bit of a connection to Brees. My first three years on campus coincided with his record breaking career. Somewhere I have an old photo of 20-year-old me with an Everclear (the band, not the liquor) and Bucket hat (It was the year 2000 after all) standing with the Heisman trophy that was brought to University Bookstore on a promo tour since he was one of the favorites to win it in his final season in West Lafayette. I went from listening to that opening game against USC, to attending every home start by him, to standing in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2001 as the unthinkable happened: Purdue took the field in the Rose Bowl game as the Big Ten champion.
So many memories of time time on campus involved Brees and Purdue football. I was there when he went spinning through the air against Notre Dame in 1999. I was there when he and Chris Daniels made Nick Saban’s ass quit and head off to the SEC because he lost three in a row to Purdue (the only team to do it tot he Hall of Fame coach) after a 1999 blowout of Michigan State. I was there when he led the second half comeback against Michigan. I was there when this happened:
I thought about that 2000 season for much of last season. Not because Purdue had dreams of returning. We haven’t won a Big Ten game in nearly three years now, but our rivals to the South in Bloomington had their own dream season that led to their second Rose Bowl appearance long after the first. If you buy EA College Football 27 you’ll see Indiana cach Curt Cignetti ont he cover, something that was unthinkable even two years ago. a quarter century ago it was Brees and Purdue who were on the cover of a college football video game!
In 2001 there was no college football playoff. The BCS was essentially a toddler in its third season, and it already had controversy. Oklahoma was the unquestioned No. 1 that year, but who would be their opponent in the title game? That second spot was a mess. Florida State, Miami, Washington, Virginia Tech, and Oregon State were all 10-1 entering the bowl season. To make matters worse, those 10-1 teams. Despite being in three different conferences, had all their losses against each other. Oregon State’s lone loss was to Washington. Miami’s lone loss was to Washington in a random non-conference game in Seattle, but the Hurricanes had also handed Florida State and Virginia Tech their lone losses.
And it could have been even crazier. Washington’s lone loss came against Oregon, who, if not for their own random non-conference 27-23 loss at Wisconsin, would also have been 10-1. Had they won in Madison that season (and the Badgers were ranked 5th at the time pre-Bret Bielema and the two-time defending Rose Bowl champ) the Pac-10 (Yes, kids, it did exist as a major conference at one time) would have been a three-way standoff of 10-1 teams that were also 7-1 in the league after Oregon State beat Oregon in the season finale. As it was, it was still a three-way tie at 7-1 with Oregon beating Washington, who beat Oregon State, who beat Oregon.
A lot of people forget that Purdue came very close to also being a 10-1 team in that mess. Purdue got into the Rose Bowl at 8-3 overall and as part of its own three-way conference tie, but a walk-off field goal (among a lot of other things that went against Purdue that day) cost them a win at Notre Dame, and a missed field goal and poor special teams at Penn State cost them another win. Basically, special teams disaster cost Purdue two early games that year and nearly derailed hte Rose Bowl run. In retrospect, Purdue probably doesn’t get the title shot against Oklahoma if it wins those games (it was awful in a loss at Michigan State that year), but it was very close to at least being int he discussion.
Brees left after that season. He overcame an awful shoulder injury to throw for more yards, touchdowns, and completions in the NFL than anyone else save noted football enthusiast Tom Brady. It’s why he is going into the Hall of Fame this weekend as a first ballot selection, and the honor is well earned. He may not be the best quarterback ever (it really is Brady and not even close), but he is in the top 5.
As we approach this celebration and coronation of an incredible career this weekend it is hard to believe it has been 28 years since he led Purdue out of the tunnel as a first-time starter few people knew. He has a Super Bowl ring and Super Bowl MVP award, but I still remember him leading Purdue to a narrow 21-19 over Rice in his first career home start where he had two passing TDs and a rushing TD. I stood in the student section that day near the top of Ross-Ade Stadium, again with some friends from Kokomo, and had no idea I was watching the beginning of the career of one of the best to ever play the position.
That’s why this weekend is not only a celebration for Saints fans (what is it with him and playing in gold and black), but Purdue fans. Between is Purdue career, NFL career, and 18 playoff starts he ended up throwing for 97,516 yards and almost 700 touchdowns. Those are absurd numbers when you think about it. He’s thrown for so many yards that, if you strength them together, they reach from the 50 yard line at Ross-Ade Stadium almost to Monument Circle in Indianapolis. It’s over 55 miles.
This weekend his journey goes roughly 290 miles straight east from Ross-Ade Stadium to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. I am just some guy who writes about Purdue on the internet, but I think it is honestly safe to say that Hammer & Rails does not exist if not for two things:
- Dave Kitchell giving me a shot as a sportswriter in 1999 for the Kokomo Tribune while I was a student at Purdue.
- Drew Brees taking Purdue to a Rose Bowl, also while I was a student.
As he goes into the Hall of Fame this weekend I know I am not the only Purdue fan celebrating. It just feels a little personal because those teams he led in West Lafayette led to everything this site has ever been. I have only met the man once, but the atmosphere he created those three years in West Lafayette unquestionably shaped Purdue football. The Ross-Ade Pavillion. The new football practice facility. The Tiller Tunnel. None of that happens without what he did.
And for that, I know we are all thankful.
