Rugged schedule philosophy not changing under Brohm

The rebuilding process of Purdue football will not include loading up the non-conference schedule with wins coming from bought games from lower leagues.

Not as long as Jeff Brohm is in charge.

The Boliermakers’ second-year head coach left no doubt how he felt about perceived cupcake scheduling as he detailed his philosophy on non-conference scheduling during a 15-minute radio interview segment on The Dan Dakich Show Wednesday afternoon.

"I'm a little old school when it comes to scheduling," Brohm said.

Brohm said he’d prefer to emulate his college coach, Howard Schnellenberger, in scheduling his program’s three non-conference games most years. During his time at Louisville, Schnellenberger showed a willingness to play practically anybody in the nation.

"There's quite a few Big Ten teams that have zero Power 5 (opponents) in their non-conference. We have two (and) we’'ll have two every year," Brohm said. "If it were up to me, we'd have three."

Click for the entire audio of Brohm's segment on The Dan Dakich Show

And it's that last 'if it were up to me' line where Purdue athletics director Mike Bobinski almost has to save his head football coach from himself. Since taking the AD post in Aug. 2016, Bobinski has spoken repeatedly about being smart with football scheduling with the restrictions that come with a nine-game conference slate, bowl-eligibility considerations and season ticket revenue to consider.

Purdue's non-conference scheduling over the next four years is a reflection of the partnership between Bobinski and Brohm as the Boilermakers will play six of those 11 scheduled non-conference games against Power 5 Conference opponents and 10 of the aforementioned 11 inside Ross-Ade Stadium.

Purdue also has agreed to a home-and-home series versus Oregon State in 2021 and 2024 along with a road game against Virginia Tech in 2023. The Boliermakers also signed a renewal of the rivalry game against Notre Dame every year from 2024-2028, with games in the even-numbered years being in West Lafayette.

In 2018, Purdue is one of only 12 Power 5 Conference schools to have multiple major programs in its non-conference slate. Six Power 5 Conference schools (Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Washington State, Illinois and Minnesota) do not play a single power program in their non-league slates.

By 2016, all Southeastern Conference schools were required to schedule at least one Power 5 Conference opponent among its four non-conference games. However, unlike the Big Ten's nine-game league schedule, SEC schools have continued to keep their conference slate to just eight games and allowed all their members to schedule an opponent from the lower level of Football Championship Subdivision variety.

"You'll see more and more SEC teams and teams like to schedule nobody schools, cupcakes to make sure they have the proper record to get to the end," Brohm said. "You know what? It is a concern. I'm not going to say it's not but you see more and more teams doing that now. For us, we want to (schedule Power 5 Conference opponents). There's a lot of pluses come out of it."

Brohm acknowledged Wednesday that his philosophy runs counter to how most new coaches try to bolster their initial win totals as they slowly build their recruiting base of players.

"That's not the mold," Brohm said on The Dan Dakich Show. "You want to get wins and all that comes with that but you know what, I think it's important to schedule good competition. That helps your team, at least has helped our team with where we're at and gaining confidence."

Brohm points to his first game at Purdue, a 35-28 loss to Louisville in Lucas Oil Stadium, as a turning point to the 2017 season that gave his players confidence. The loss to a Atlantic Coast Conference school and 2016 Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson showed also that Brohm doesn't believe losses are always a deathblow to a program or season.

"We knew that would be a tough opponent, we lost but we gained a ton of confidence out of it," Brohm said. "It helped us go to Missouri, an SEC team, to beat 35-3 and beat them worse than we should've but we did that. Those (non-conference) games are big for those reasons."

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