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Josh Okonye has been here before.
He’s one of only a few Boilermakers — fellow transfers Spencer Evans, Shane Evans and T.J. McCollum are others — on a roster of around 100 who have previous bowl experience.
So when Jeff Brohm says he wants to create a fun experience for the Boilermakers during their bowl preparation while also — clearly — wanting to win the game, Okonye understands the balance.
“You can have a fun experience, but on the last day, it’s time to play the game,” said Okonye, who played in — and won — the Military Bowl while at Wake Forest last season. “If you come home with a loss, the experience isn’t as great. That’s what makes the experience more memorable, going and winning the game. That’s what made my experience last year so much better, because we had all the fun activities, but if we would have lost, it would have taken away from that.
“I like the business-trip approach. The goal at the end of the day is to win.”
Purdue (6-6), which hasn't played in a bowl since the 2012 season, starts preparing to do so — it plays Arizona (7-5) in the Dec. 27 Foster Farms Bowl in Santa Clara — with practices on Friday and Saturday this week, then a brief break for finals before a resumption Dec. 14. After a week-plus of prep in West Lafayette, the Boilermakers will travel to the San Francisco Bay area on Dec. 23, where they will practice for a few days before playing the Wildcats in Levi's Stadium. Brohm says Purdue is likely to use 13 of its available 15 practices, and they’ll be balanced, using some time to develop its underclassmen but also preparing to play. And Purdue’s goal is certain.
“The No. 1 goal is to win the football game, so we'll definitely have that in mind,” Brohm said. “But to practice, it's a very valuable opportunity for your young guys to develop and get a lot of reps, and we're going to make sure that we utilize that to the full capacity and I think our guys will enjoy the fact that we can get that done.
“… But we want to compete. We want to get better. And without question, we want to make sure all of our guys are getting meaningful reps. Doesn't matter how long we need to stay out there; we want to make sure we get that done because these practices can really affect and help shape your team for the future.”
The bowl-experienced Boilermakers will be able to help lead the way. Place-kicker Spencer Evans, who played on Baylor’s bowl teams in 2014 and ’15, says it’s easy to fall into a “vacation mindset” once a team hits its bowl destination.
“It’s a great time, and you get to experience new places, experience new cities, things like that, but you have to remember you’re there to get a job done,” he said. “The school has a lot of money invested in this, the fans are still supporting it for this game. We’ve got to go win.
“When you get down the bowl site, it’s not a free-for-all, it’s not a vacation, we have to go there to have a good time, but we have to work.”
That was Brohm’s message, in part, during a team meeting earlier this week, when he laid out the plan for the Boilermakers, with practice and travel schedules. He also let players know his expectations. It was nothing out of the ordinary, said Spencer Evans, only behavioral rules — no non-team personnel in rooms, curfew, etc. — that need to be spelled out.
“He made it very clear that there’s a specific set of team guidelines, team rules while we’re gone and if you violate any of those, you’ll have to find your own way home when we’re gone. You won’t be allowed to be there any more and you’ll be sent home. I think that’s smart. There’s a lot riding on these games,” Evans said. “I know it’s postseason and all that, but you have to go down there and win the game. We’re all happy with how the season has turned out but there’s also things that we wish we could change. We were this close to an 8-4 season. I think he obviously knows that. (A win) would be a huge exclamation point on the end of the season.”
The Boilermakers are eager to start preparation, as its much better than sitting around at home. Okonye experienced that in his first couple seasons at Wake — the Demon Deacons hadn’t been to the postseason since 2011 before this trip last year — when he would be home in Texas for a couple weeks before starting to feel antsy. But WF finished 6-6 last season, then beat Temple in the Military Bowl in Annapolis, and he thinks he can pass those lessons along to the Boilermakers.
“Treat (the bowl) as any other game,” Okonye said. “Don’t psyche yourself out about it, just another week added to the season. Prepare the same way you always do and it’ll give you the best chance to go out there and win.”
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