Brohm needed to add older players to Purdue roster 'to even have a chance'
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CHICAGO — Jeff Brohm may not be done tweaking Purdue’s roster.
He said Tuesday at the Big Ten media days he’s still looking to add another player before the fall.
It’ll likely be a graduate transfer, which would make six for 2017.
That’s not the way Brohm would prefer to assemble a roster, searching for a “so-called free agent” and loading up on one- or two-year players, whether it be graduate transfers or junior college transfers.
But, in his first year with the Boilermakers, Brohm knew quickly such a philosophy had to employed.
“When I took the job, without question, I was worried about the roster. I was worried about the talent level,” Brohm said of a program that'd won only nine games in its previous four seasons. “I knew at some point we were going to have to do something to improve that. That was verified, once I got there. There’s only so many things you can do without recruiting and developing players, so we went the graduate transfer route, we went the junior college route. We had to, in my opinion, in order to even have a chance. Otherwise, it would be a very, very difficult year.”
Brohm targeted obvious areas of need when bringing in older players, bringing in two graduate transfer offensive linemen (Rhode Island’s Dave Steinmetz and Northern Illinois’ Shane Evans), a junior college offensive lineman (Ethan Smart), a graduate transfer receiver (Notre Dame’s Corey Holmes) and two junior college receivers (Terry Wright and Isaac Zico). But he also added Wake Forest’s Josh Okonye, who is slotted to start camp at nickel, and Western Kentucky linebacker T.J. McCollum in already a position of strength.
“A lot of them have playing experience, so to be able to add some depth right away at least, if not a starter that can come in, was something we thought we owed to the team in order to get better,” Brohm said. “Without those guys, I would not be very confident. With those guys here, I feel at least a little bit better that there are some more capable bodies to add in the mix that we’re going to for sure need.”
Even with that infusion of experienced players from an untraditional building process, Brohm knows Year 1 likely will be a grind.
The Boilermakers open against Heisman winner Lamar Jackson and Louisville in Lucas Oil Stadium, have Michigan in a cross-division game to open league play and play on the road against the West's best teams (Wisconsin, Northwestern, Iowa).
With that kind of schedule, Brohm is trying to get players to truly buy into a one-game-at-a-time approach. Especially for a team that has what Brohm called a low confidence level. Because, collectively he knows, the end result may not be that great.
"You can talk all you want about believing in yourself and wanting to win, (but) once the season gets going, we may not win as many as you want, so you’ve got to make sure you’re prepared to handle the adverse situations and realize, ‘Hey, we’re not in this to go to the national championship this year. We’re in it to improve each and every week,'" Brohm said. "So how can we find a way to improve? Let’s not worry about wins and losses. Let’s not look down the road. How can we try to find a way to win this game? And you know what? If we win, great. If we lose, OK. If we lose bad, that’s OK, too. Let’s find a way to improve, without shutting it down and without quitting and not giving great effort and great fight each and every week. The competitive part and the fight and the will to win, we have to find a way to make that happen each and every week. I watched video of them last year (and that) was not on video.
"It’s hard to have patience. I know it’s hard when you’re losing. This year is going to be tough. We have a tough schedule. I don’t know how we’re going to stack up. I think we have some good players. We just don’t have the depth you’d like to have, and that is a factor when you play very good football teams. I think we probably can be in games in the first half. Are we going to be in them the second half? That’s the key. We’ve got to do the small things. I think they all add up, whether it’s improving the roster, developing your young players, motivating your guys to compete and work hard, getting players in now to help you, the recruiting. All those things matter. You can’t get down. I think as soon as you get down and lose confidence, you’re going to lose to a team and start to lose worse. We try to have a positive attitude and we understand it’s not going to be perfect. Places I’ve been, we’ve gotten beat bad before, and you’ve just got to react to it and adjust and have a plan."
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