To understand how much this day meant to me it’s important to understand everything that had led up to it.
Growing up a Purdue football fan, I’ve sat through countless heartbreaks. When I first started watching Purdue it was towards the end of the Joe Tiller days. Curtis Painter was the best quarterback we’d had since Kyle Orton and the Boilers were stumbling their way to a mediocre bowl year after year. Tiller was being forced out and Danny Hope was set to take his place.
The Danny Hope experiment brought more of the same. His first two years brought losing records and missing the postseason before back to back 6-6 seasons. One of which ended in a bowl win, the second resulted in Hope losing his job following a win over arch-rival IU. Purdue forced out Joe Tiller, the best coach in school history, because a guaranteed bowl birth and at least six wins wasn’t good enough. After two 6-6 seasons, The Boilers fired Danny Hope to prove to fans that mediocracy wasn’t acceptable.
The Dark Ages
During the 2012 off-season, Darrell Hazell was brought in to be the savior of Purdue Football. He’d just lead Kent State to an undefeated conference season in his second year, and he had all of the hype in West Lafayette. Mediocracy was to be no more. Or so we thought
I saw the Danny Hope years up close through my yearly trip to Ross-Ade for one home game. The Darrell Hazell years were more personal because I was at every home game for his four-year tenure. My dad and I got up at 6am every Saturday morning to make the 3.5-hour drive to West Lafayette. We’d sit-in disappointment as we watched our beloved Boilers lose week after week in heartwrenching fashion. Losses to Northern Illinois, Central Michigan, and Bowling Green at home were staples of the Hazell years and I was there for all of them. We had three Big Ten wins in four years and only one came in Ross-Ade. That was the one game I had to miss that year.
After four years of Hazell, the future was grim. There was no hope (no pun intended) and fans were calling for heads. Hazell was fired halfway through 2016 and Athletic Director, Morgan Burke, was fired that year as well. With the hire of new athletic director Mike Bobinski, we were ready for the future. We just didn’t know who would lead us there.
The Savior is Here
Most fans, including myself, wanted PJ Fleck the charismatic young gun out of Western Michigan to be the Purdue coach of the future. When Fleck announced he was going to Minnesota, we were all left scratching our heads wondering who would possibly take his place as our #1 candidate.
A coach from Western Kentucky by the name of Jeff Brohm emerged as the front-runner. Brohm had led an explosive Hilltopper offense for three years and took them to two straight conference titles. Bobinski hired Brohm and it was time to play football.
Brohm’s first season was the most fun I’d ever had as a Purdue Football fan. It included multiple home night games which was unheard of during the Hazell years, a blowout win over an SEC school, and multiple sold-out home games. Capping off the year with a crazy last-second touchdown win over Arizona in the Foster Farms Bowl. It was safe to say that excitement for football was back in West Lafayette.
The Best Night of My Life
Now back to what became the best night of my life. After an 0-3 start to the 2018 season, the Boilers rattled off three wins in a row to get back to .500 with the second-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes coming into town for a Saturday night game in Ross-Ade Stadium.
This game had a different feeling about it all week. For being a .500 team, I was oddly confident about our chances. On Saturday morning College Gameday aired a segment on Purdue superfan Tyler Trent. Tyler was battling terminal cancer and he stole the hearts of football fans everywhere. He predicted a victory over Ohio State and on that morning he found out he was miraculously going to be able to attend the game.
When I stepped foot on campus that day there was a buzz that I’d never felt before. The closer I got to Ross-Ade the stronger the buzz got. I’d never seen so many people at a Purdue Football game and I’d been at the sellout against Michigan the year before. There was just something different about this game.
The Game
David Blough opened the scoring with a back corner touchdown pass to Isaac Zico and Purdue never looked back. Another touchdown to Rondale Moore put the Boilers up 14-3 at halftime. Everyone in the stadium was looking at each other in disbelief. Thoughts of “is this really happening?” or “can we hold onto this?” ran through every fan’s head.
For my dad and I, we’d seen too many blown leads to have any confidence but as I said, this game had a different feeling to it. The second half opened with another Ohio State field goal followed by another Purdue touchdown. 21-6 Boilers. Then DJ Knox broke off a 42 yard run for another touchdown. 28-6 Boilers. Ross-Ade was rocking. I’d never seen anything like it. Ohio State finally got into the endzone and once again DJ Knox followed it up with a 40-yard touchdown run. 34-13 Boilers. That was followed by Rondale Moore breaking an unbelievable 43-yard touchdown that sent all of us fans to the field entrance ready to storm the field.
Chants of “overrated” and “we want Bama” echoed through the stadium as Ohio State tried to mount one last comeback attempt. Standing at field level I watch Columbus native, Markus Bailey, jump a route and take it back the other way for six. That was the dagger. It was 49-20 Boilers and we were ready to party in West Lafayette.
The Aftermath
Storming the field has always been on my bucket list and this was the night that I finally crossed it off. The victory strobe lights were going nuts, fireworks were going off in the background, and Mo Bamba was playing over the speakers. I was one of the first people to midfield as 57,236 people made their way onto the field. We were fist-pumping and singing Mo Bamba with receiver Jackson Anthrop and at this point, my night couldn’t have been any better. I don’t know how long we were out there but it wasn’t long enough. I will never forget a detail of that night. Watching the highlights, I still can’t believe that it happened. After years of disappointment and heartbreak Purdue Football finally gave me something to be proud of.
