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SAN FRANCISCO — Danny Ezechukwu thinks he first hugged Jeff Brohm after the Minnesota game.
He definitely did after Iowa. Then again after IU.
Ezechukwu joked Monday if he saw Brohm later in the team hotel, he'd probably hug him again.
Ezechukwu and the rest of Purdue's seniors have a hard time containing their appreciation for the first-year head coach, considering they're spending the holidays preparing for a bowl game instead of at home.
"I just feel like it could be real easy for him to come in here and just pack it in. ‘I don’t have my guys.’ You hear it and you see it all the time, even if people aren’t saying it," Ezechukwu said on Christmas, after the team had an early-morning practice in Oakland and days before it plays Arizona in the Foster Farms Bowl. "It could have been real easy for him to say, ‘We don’t have the guys we want right now. We’re not going to get judged on these first couple of years. We’ll wait until we get the guys we want in and we can really do what we want to do.’
"But he said, ‘We’re going to win now, and we want to win now.’ I feel like he’s done everything in his power to show us how serious it is about doing that and putting us in a position to do that, and I really appreciate him for that."
Purdue had won only nine games in its previous four seasons before Brohm entered the picture last December. In one of his first meetings with the team, he relayed that we're-going-to-win-now message.
It didn't surprise T.J. McCollum, a graduate transfer from Western Kentucky, where Brohm had been the head coach.
McCollum had seen Brohm's fire and passion for the game and winning for years, so he knew the Boilermakers' rocky history didn't matter.
“A lot people say, ‘Oh, we’ll give them a couple more years.’ Coach Brohm is like, ‘No. This year. Now. We’re going to get better now. We’re not trying to wait until later down the road.’ He’s just a competitor,” McCollum said. “That’s what you have to love about that guy.”
And Purdue’s players certainly seem to.
The ones who have expressed their gratitude to Brohm have admittedly left the head coach in awe. He said he’s never been as proud of a team than he is of this one, winning six games and reaching a bowl.
“We had numerous victories this year when seniors came up to me and expressed more gratitude than I’m used to after a win,” Brohm said earlier this month. “It definitely makes you feel good and feel like you’re giving back. It just shows how much winning means to these guys. It’s been a great season for them to get to this point.”
Ezechukwu’s first bursting of emotions post-Minnesota was spurred, largely, because of how the game unfolded.
Too often in his Purdue career had Ezechukwu experience a tight game only to have a different outcome. But on that October day in Ross-Ade Stadium, Purdue not only overcame the Gophers, but a significant weather delay and had to rally from a deficit to win.
Ezechukwu called it “the turning point.”
"Don’t get me wrong, we expect to win. We go out there and practice hard. But when you finally see the fruits of that labor, it’s surreal," he said. "Especially when you’ve gone through what guys like me, Garrett (Hudson), Ja’Whaun (Bentley), Da’Wan (Hunte) and Antoine (Miles), have gone through, it makes you appreciate it just a little bit more than other student-athletes kind of would on a normal basis.
"I remember I told all the coaches on the coaching staff ‘thank you’ (after Minnesota) because in the past, those games have been different outcomes, a play here, a play there. So I made sure I told them all thank you.”
Classmate Gelen Robinson said he’s made sure to do the same. And, like the coaches, he wasn’t just offering words. He was delivering, too, giving all he could to help Purdue be better and not continue the losing trend.
“I’m sure a lot of coaches do say it, too, but really putting it into action, it was awesome to be a part of,” Robinson said. “I know a lot of the seniors, we hadn’t been around winning ever at a college program. It’s new to us, and we’re glad we can be a part of this change this first season and just keep the ball rolling for these young guys.
“(Brohm) treats everyone the same. That’s just something we’ve got to be grateful for. He’s gotten us this far. We know he’s going to be great in the future, but just the fact he did it this year, he gave it everything, it’s all we expect from him. That’s all he expects from us.”
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