Purdue can thank the United States Air Force Academy for putting brothers Jacob and Brennan Thieneman side by side as college football players.
It was one of Brennan Thieneman's worst days, but also a pivotal moment for him, when Air Force officials denied him entry to the academy and therefore, his place as a walk-on on its football team, due to failing marks on his physical.
As a high school football player at Guerin Catholic near Indianapolis, Thieneman had injured both his shoulders, requiring labrum surgery at one point. Consequently, he wasn't able to hold up against the Air Force Academy's high standards for admission.
"It was a really rough point in his life and his confidence was down," Jacob Thieneman said. "I told him about my experience as a walk-on here at Purdue, told him there was a spot here if he would put the work in and after a few days of wrapping his head around what had happened, he chose to come here. It's been a great decision for him."
Brennan Thieneman didn't have a scholarship to a Division I program, so he chose to take the same path as his older brother and accepted a preferred walk-on spot at Purdue. Brennan's choice to join his brother at Purdue shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody and indeed wasn't to his older sibling.
"We're extremely close as brothers can be and we're best friends," Jacob Thieneman said. "We have always stood up for each other and have each other's back."
The Noblesville natives have already been mistaken for each other on campus. However, Brennan Thieneman reminds people that they are different people and still need their own space on a big college campus.
"Everybody thinks we live together but we can't be around each other all the time," Brennan Thieneman said. "Before the bowl game, we went on Christmas break back home with our family and we needed a break from each other after that. It was too much."
After one season with Darrell Hazell's program, Brennan Thieneman didn't know where this journey would take him. He doubted whether he'd ever see the field in a game and questioned whether that goal was a worthwhile endeavor.
Enter Jeff Brohm and his clean-slate view to the Purdue football program from its depth chart. In Brohm's first season, Brennan Thieneman played in 11 games as a special teams contributor and served as a backup safety behind his brother.
"I think with the last staff there was more politics involved by saying they would play a scholarship guy no matter what because, 'I recruited that guy,'" Brennan Thieneman said. "With this current staff, they've made it obvious that they'll play the best players and they don't care about anything other than getting the best players on the field. Take my brother for example. I don't think he was playing much under the former staff because they were recruiting safeties."
Brennan Thieneman is now charting a similar path up the Purdue depth chart as his older brother. In five games, Brennan Thieneman has made eight tackles as a reserve and has been a prominent member of Purdue's special teams. After not playing his first two seasons, Jacob Thieneman is a Boilermaker captain in his fifth year. However, one of his most difficult jobs as a captain this season has been critiquing his younger brother without causing a major family rift.
"I always want to help him but, yeah, I have to be particular in my presentation because he is my brother and he's not always receptive to hearing what I have to say," Jacob Thieneman said. "I know he respects my experience on the field so it's about me being encouraging. He's getting more and more reps on defense and doing well. Hopefully, he'll get more and more playing time and keep making plays."
The two brothers have already shared the defensive backfield at times, playing several snaps together the last two games. Two weeks ago, as Purdue (2-3, 1-1 in Big Ten) loaded the box at the line of scrimmage against Boston College's power-running offense, Jacob Thieneman slid into a hybrid linebacker spot, while Brennan Thieneman lined up behind him as the safety alongside Navon Mosley.
"It's honestly a feeling of disbelief that we're both doing it because we always joked about playing safety together being a thing we could do at the high school level," Brennan Thieneman said. "We then did it my sophomore year and his senior year but you look at college and think, 'Wow, that'd be cool. Now we're doing it here, too."
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