A look at Purdue coach Jeff Brohm's 'cat and mouse game'

In the play-by-play from Purdue's 39-point road win at Illinois, a quarterback draw by Jared Sparks was recorded in the third quarter as a gain of three yards.

This small gain run would typically be considered a forgettable play, but Jeff Brohm wants you and everybody else to see it, remember it and have to be prepared that it might be called again. Brohm knew precisely what he was doing as choice of play held much more significance than the yardage gained on the play.

Brohm knew having Sparks run the football in the Wildcat formation for the first time this season would have an impact. The Purdue coach knew it was the perfect time to call a unique formation in his offense and give the next few opponents another thing to worry about with the Boilermakers offense.

"Well, we always like to play a little cat-and-mouse with that," Jeff Brohm said with a smile about giving defenses future plays to see on film.

Brohm and his staff are fully aware of the paranoia surrounding football coaches and have an interesting way to combat this fear. Brohm's staff gives them more plays to evaluate instead of fewer.

"I think we operate on the principle of the more, the better," quarterbacks coach Brian Brohm said. "We'd almost rather you see it on game film because we can always tweak it and we'd rather you worry about us calling it again than try to surprise you two months into the season."

Jeff Brohm said on Oct. 22 that this single-wing/Wildcat formation package would be a staple in the game plan for Purdue for the remainder of the season because of Sparks' background as a former quarterback. However, to Brohm's initial point of the "cat and mouse game", if Purdue never runs that concept again this season, they've already achieved its goal by putting it in the minds of future opponents that it's a possibility.

Jeff Brohm's indifference toward future opponents seeing a large portion of his offense is the fact his playbook is fluid. Brohm's staff likes to immediately use plays scouted from other teams. Purdue's staff understands the coaching cliche that the best plan and strategy are borrowed. Whether it's NFL teams (specifically the Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, and New England Patriots) or high school tape they get from recruited prospects, Jeff Brohm's favorite saying is "I'm open to suggestions". For example, Boilermakers' wide receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard said recently the Purdue staff saw a play on a highlight video of a high school of a prospect they're currently recruiting. The very next day, quarterback David Blough was running this play in practice.

"That’s what’s so great about our offense and the head coach that we work for,” Brian Brohm said. “Most places you see a play and the head coach is going to want to see you diagram it out against every single look you can possibly get. They’re going to want to see it in practice three or four times. Then, six weeks later, maybe you’ll get to call it. We see it, we’ll put it in that day and we’ll run it.”

The only time showing plays on film has possibly backfired is the relatively low success rate of Purdue's trick plays in 2018.

"I do know people know now (we'll run trick plays) and they're not quite as aggressive on defense," Jeff Brohm said. "It's important for us to have trick plays to keep people honest. Most of the time now, people just play back on us expecting something tricky."

Membership Info: Sign up for GoldandBlack.com now | Why join? | Questions?

Follow GoldandBlack.com: Twitter | Facebook

More: Gold and Black Illustrated/Gold and Black Express | Subscribe to our podcast

Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2018. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited.