OC Brothers "relishing" role in Purdue defense

When Ryan Walters and Purdue's new coaching staff got to West Lafayette, linebacker OC Brothers was coming off the best season of his collegiate career. Despite that, he knew he wasn't going to be handed anything by the new coaches, so he had to make a good first impression. This wasn't the first regime change in his career.

"This is my third completely different head coach and coaching staff," Brothers said. "When you get a new head coach, everybody starts at the bottom. Nobody just shoots up, so even though I started last year, I knew I still had to prove myself throughout the offseason, work hard and just continue to show the coaches what I can do."

After a stellar spring practice and fall camp, Brothers solidified himself as Kevin Kane's starting middle linebacker. The former Auburn transfer is now the commander of Purdue's Air Strike defense and has been thriving in his role, according to Kane.

"OC's done a good job. He's gotten everybody lined up, he gets the calls to these guys and he executes his job. Each week from August 1 to now, he's gotten better," Kane said. "I think he's gotten more comfortable, he's playing at a faster pace."

The 6'2", 245-pound linebacker has emerged as a force in the middle of the Purdue defense over the first two games. Brothers has eight total tackles, including a pair of tackles for loss and one sack on the young season.

Brothers has impressed his head coach with his athleticism at the position.

"It's hugely valuable. You know, he's an athletic linebacker that can get sideline to sideline and that definitely helps. We were able to ignite him on a couple pressures to get penetration up the middle and he made a bunch of plays for us," Walters said.

While he's impressed early on, Kevin Kane pushed the Boilermakers' linebacker following the team's week one loss to Fresno State, sharing that he challenged Brothers to make more of an impact on the field and keep improving as the year progresses.

"I think I kind of challenged him last week to have more of an impact in the game rather than just being there, so he did. He actually responded well and had a good game. So every week I got to challenge him to be better than what he was and I think he's really relishing that," Kane said.

Kane has his own name for Brothers' role in the defense. The "eraser" as he calls it. With five defensive lineman up front, the Boilermakers' middle linebacker cleans up anything that may creep through the trenches.

"He's gotta be the eraser. You got five dudes up front, and you got to make them right and erase everything else," Kane said.

"Coach Kane calls it the eraser. I make everybody right inside out, just get to the ball by any means," Brothers said.

Being the eraser isn't his only role, however. Brothers is able to show off his full skillset compared to his role in Purdue's previous defensive system. The redshirt senior has seen an increased role as a pass rusher and still drops into coverage.

"I feel like especially this defense you got to be able to run, you got to be able to hit, you got to be able to cover, you got to be able to do everything. So I feel like that's definitely a lot of my trademarks and definitely allows me to showcase what I can do," Brothers said.

Under the prior regime in West Lafayette, Brothers was not asked to rush the passer very much, doing so just 35 times across the 2021 and 2022 campaigns. He is nearly a third of the way there through just two games this season.

As his role increases, he sought out extra work with Kane and arguably Purdue's top two pass rushers, Nic Scourton and Kydran Jenkins, to help hone his skills in the area.

"Pass rush is something that's kind of relatively new to me, but in this defense, I work with Coach Kane a lot on my pass rush, Nic and KJ and everything [too]. I pretty much have matchups against the centers and tight ends so I just do what I can do to make a play," Brothers said.

Brothers helps lead a revamped Purdue defense, both schematically and personnel wise into a new era of Boilermaker football and is smack dab in the middle of the Air Strike takeover in West Lafayette.