Below is a transcription on an interview with Mark Herrmann, the former All-American quarterback who led, in part, Purdue to its only 10 win season 40 years ago. Herrmann finished fourth in the 1980 Heisman Trophy balloting as well, and played in the NFL for the Broncos, Colts, Rams and Chargers. He still lives in the Carmel, Indiana area.

GoldandBlack.com: What are your impressions on Jeff Brohm’s job here in West Lafayette, year three in particular?

Herrmann: He has been fabulous. He’s brought an offensive expertise, a preparedness, his recruiting is great. I think if you combine those things, knowledge of the game, playing the position of quarterback, coaching, playing in the league, if you combine all those elements then you have a pretty good recipe for a great coach.

This cupboard was pretty bare when he took the job and he had a couple of miraculous years to start his tenure. The injury bug and a small senior class kind of tarnished this year’s result. But you see that every week you feel like there’s a chance.

That’s all you can ask for a fan, and you feel like this is going to be a competitive team, this is going to be a team that’s fun to watch. They’re going to do some fun things offensively and they’re going to get after you defensively so I’m so pleased he’s here. I think he’s a guy that could maybe have a (Iowa coach) Kirk Ferentz kind of tenure and hopefully be here 20 years but I (obviously) don’t know if that’s in the cards for Brohm. I’ve totally been a big fan of his and I think he’s doing a great job.

GoldandBlack.com: You played for a pretty intense coach in Jim Young. Jeff Brohm is a pretty intense guy, so that was a coaching style you obviously responded to.

Herrmann: I think they’re very similar-type coaches.

Coach Young was such a goal-oriented type of coach and was detail-oriented. He had us prepared, he had us mentally motivated. He had that Big Ten, midwest background. He coached for Bo Schembechler and went to school in Ohio so he knew what Big Ten football was all about and he knew for us to be competitive, we had to play our very best every week. We had to give (the opponent) some different wrinkles like Jeff Brohm is doing. We weren’t going to pound the ball, we had to spread teams out and throw it and mix in the run a little bit so I think they are very similar.

I think you need that intensity. Young kids want that direction. You have to get after them sometimes. I think Jeff has shown that and certainly coach Young showed that when I was here.

GoldandBlack.com: How did you choose Purdue to play football?

Herrmann: It was a different kind of process back then. Everything was pretty compact and they weren’t coming to see us as sophomores. You didn’t have the Internet highlight reel to send around.

I came up to visit the day that the Boilers beat Michigan (Nov. 6, 1976, in Herrmann's senior year of high school at Carmel H.S.), that big upset. Coach (Alex) Agase was there (Agase was fired three weeks later. I enjoyed the day and talked to the coaches. I went there with an open mind to see how things were run and I came away impressed.

I looked at Notre Dame very closely. I grew up a Catholic boy, I still am. That desire to go there was pretty strong. I went up and talked to coach Dan Devine and I didn’t get that sense of “We’d love to have you.” It was almost “If you didn’t come, there’s another guy behind you that we’d take and he’s probably just as good.” I also looked at Michigan State. I wanted to stay kind of close to home. They were throwing the ball a little bit with Darryl Rogers as the coach. What swayed it for me was when coach Young gets the job, he came down to Carmel, and we sat down and he mapped out a strategy for if I happen to be the guy that he would design the offense around me. He showed me some films of the University of Arizona (where Young had coached before coming to Purdue) and they were running some good things in passing game. He knew my style and he knew that I wasn’t going to run the option or do a lot of quarterback sweeps. He would design a pro-passing game and he said “You’re going to get every opportunity to be the guy and if you are, we’ll take care of you.”

GoldandBlack.com: So if not Purdue, where would you have chosen?

Herrmann: I still think I probably would have gone to Notre Dame. That magnetism there was still there but ultimately I made the best choice obviously. I got to play early (Herrmann started in his second college game) and we had a lot of success.

GoldandBlack.com: Talk a little bit about some of your memories about that 1979 team from 40 years ago.

Herrmann: We came off a great year prior, 9-2-1. We had a lot of starters back and we really felt like this was going to be a team that could do some damage. We got off to a slow start. We went out to UCLA and they beat us pretty good. They had a great team. It was 90 degrees at seven o’clock at night, there was smog all over the place so it was not a great atmosphere. They were talented, they had a really good team.

Then we lost to Minnesota early which was probably the lowest point of that season. We went up there and just laid an egg. We didn’t play well, we had some turnovers, dropped punts inside the five yard line. I’ve never seen coach Young so upset. From then on, we really figured that we had to be at our best every week. We went on to a seven game winning streak and won 10 games and beat Tennessee (in the Bluebonnet Bowl). There were so many talented guys, great leaders in Keena Turner, Pete Quinn, Bart Burrell, all those guys were magnificent. We just had a great cohesive unit and of course coach Young directed us the entire way. To cap off that decade with a come behind victory against a perennial, traditional powerhouse in Tennessee, I think that really capped off the season. Little did we know that would be the only 10 win season here at Purdue.

GoldandBlack.com: What did beating Notre Dame at Ross-Ade in 1979 mean to you?

Herrmann: That was a great thrill. As we’ve talked about, I think that was the highest attended game in Ross-Ade Stadium history (70,567, topped a year later against IU). I remember bringing in temporary bleachers all over and it was a great atmosphere, beautiful day. We got behind late in the game but I remember our game winning drive and I remember the play that put us up. It was kind a fake dive and then throw a slant route to Bart Burrell who is a split-end at the right side, which he had press coverage he’d give me a signal and he was going to run the takeoff. We were at about the seven-yard line and I saw that signal and did my fake and threw the fade route to him and he came up with a big catch to it to win the game.

Anytime you can beat your rival, and with a school that I really strongly considered, that was very satisfying. I think that game kind of put us in the national discussion that maybe we were a team to be reckoned with that year. We moved on and won the Michigan game later in the year.

GoldandBlack.com: When you finished fourth for the Heisman, tell us how that process ran back in 1980.

Herrmann: It’s totally different. I didn’t make the trip to New York for that announcement. They had all of us there during the week and we talked with Bryant Gumbel on the "Today Show" and four of us were there. That was kind of just a regular interview. It was just a total guess who was going to be in the finals there. It would have been great to be in the crowd and take part in that whole ceremony but that just wasn’t the way it was.

I thought I had a good chance all along and then we went up to Ann Arbor and that’s kind of been our House of Horrors (Michigan won 26-0). They did a great job at defending us. I didn’t play well that day and that kind of sealed my fate but it was just fun to be in the conversation.

I tried not to worry about that. I just tried leading our team and doing what we needed to do. If the numbers came about from that then fine. It does get to be some pressure around it but the more you get deeper into the season, those things keep coming up. I tried to keep it on the back burner.

GoldandBlack.com: During your time in the NFL, you were part of one of the most famous trades in sports history. Tell us about your involvement in that and how you found out about it all.

Herrmann: That was crazy. As you mentioned I didn’t play any my rookie year (in Denver) and then I played a couple games my second year. It was a strike-shortened year in 1982, so we didn’t have that many opportunities. I was all excited about year three and maybe having a chance to challenge for the starting role and getting the opportunity to play. Steve DeBerg was on the roster, Craig Morton had recently retired so I thought this was my chance. I didn’t really know what was going on behind the scenes.

I knew John Elway did not want to go to Baltimore (where the Colts played at the time) and he was threatening to go to the Yankees and play baseball. The draft comes and goes and they select him and then in May I get a call from Dan Reeves and he said “Mark, we’re trading you for the Baltimore Colts” and I go “you’re kidding me” and he told me they were going to bring in John Elway. I was shocked, I was disappointed. My dreams of playing in Denver my whole career were out the window. I had to kind of regroup and say “okay, this is a little obstacle.” I had to go to Baltimore and make the best of it and just see what that’s all about. It was kind of a little-known asterisk in the deal that I was part of that trade. It was disappointing back then, but it’s all about surviving "the bads" in the NFL. If you can keep a job, that’s what it’s all about.

GoldandBlack.com: You played with the Rams in 1988-1989. Talk about playing with Jim Everett in LA.

Herrmann: It was great. After those San Diego years, Ernie Zampese was our offensive coordinator under Don Coryell. As you mentioned, those were my best years. I really enjoyed that. Ernie went up to the Rams and was their offensive coordinator under John Robinson. I briefly came back to the Colts just for their training camp and then they released me and Ernie called me and told me “We’d love to have you come back and be the backup for Jim Everett.” They signed me right at the end of training camp. They released the other two quarterbacks and kept me on as the backup. I kind of felt I was the old stable mate because I originally helped recruit Everett to Purdue. We had a great relationship. He was really playing well with the Rams and we really had some good teams. We played the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game and they routed us pretty good. It was a great time for those two years and just to be around Jim and some good offense. Those were a lot of fun.

GoldandBlack.com: In 1992 season opener, the Indianapolis Colts starting quarterback is Mark Herrmann and he leads them to victory, and then they released him?

Herrmann: It doesn’t get much worse than that! It’s kind of comical now that you look back. Coach Marchibroda said that I was going to start the opening game and so I was excited. I was preparing like crazy, getting ready for the Cleveland Browns. I started the game, we won the game 14-3, I think.

I was the offensive player of the game, got the game ball and life was good. I was back in Indianapolis, it was the first time the Colts had won a home opener since they moved to Indy. We had a nice celebration in our neighborhood that night. It was Labor Day Weekend as I recall. I go back in excited to watch the film and one of the administrators said “Mark, Jim Irsay would like to talk to you.” So I said, okay great. We’ll talk about next week’s game. I came in and sat down and there’s Ted Marchibroda way over in the corner of the office. I thought, well this is a little bit puzzling. Irsay said “Great job yesterday. You were such a big part of this win. Congratulations, but we’re going to release you. We’re going to let you go.” From then on I didn’t hear a word so I drove home in just total shock. My career was over that day.

GoldandBlack.com: Tell us what you’ve done for the Krannert school.

Herrmann: I was a Krannert graduate back in 1981 and just valued that whole education process. Being a student athlete and having the opportunity to come back and give back a little bit to Purdue and to Krannert. I am now the Director of Corporate and Foundation relations for Krannert. I go out and seek opportunities, fundraising opportunities.

More than that I give our students an opportunity to have some awareness with companies and enable them and our faculty to be able to get those chances and establish careers. This is into my sixth year and It’s a great time at Purdue. We’ve set fundraising records with the leadership of Mitch Daniels, and its been so gratifying for me to be on campus everyday and watch young students and give them a great opportunity to succeed. It’s been wonderful.