Strolling Through Rose-Colored Memory from 25 Years Ago

Purdue honored Drew Brees and many of his 2000 Big Ten Championship teammates a few weeks ago to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Boilermakers’ journey to their second Rose Bowl appearance.

Unless he was overlooked in the media reports leading up to the reunion, former head coach Jim Colletto should have been invited to the party. While Purdue won the Big Ten and ended a 34-year pursuit of a return trip to Pasadena, Calif., it probably doesn’t get there without Colletto’s efforts.

Colletto’s final recruiting class at Purdue was probably his finest, and his background as an offensive line coach yielded 60 percent of the Rose Bowl line that arguably is the Boilermakers’ best in two generations.

Future tackles Matt Light and Brandon Gorin, plus guard/center Chukky Okobi, signed with the Boilermakers on Feb. 7, 1996. That trio, plus defensive lineman David Nugent, would go on to play in the NFL.

“We won’t know until three or four years down the road,” Colletto said when asked to assess the class that helped Joe Tiller get off to a great start at Purdue.

Light, a future second round pick of the New England Patriots, came to Purdue from Greenville, Ohio, as a 6-5, 245-pound tight end. Purdue beat out Kentucky and Miami (Ohio) for Light’s services.

Tiller converted Light to offensive tackle in 1997 and redshirted the future Super Bowl champion. Over the next three seasons, Light bulked up to 305 pounds.

Tiller did the same thing for Gorin, who arrived at Purdue from Muncie South as a 6-6, 250-pound defensive lineman. Gorin was a first-team Associated Press All-State defensive lineman who also was pursued by Wisconsin and Indiana. Gorin bench-pressed his way up to 308 pounds by his final season in West Lafayette.

Okobi was already a massive 6-2, 295 pounds when making the journey from Hamden, Conn., to Purdue. More impressively, Okobi was timed at 4.9 seconds in the 40-yard dash while attending the Kentucky football camp before his senior year of high school. Also competing for Okobi’s services were the Wildcats, Syracuse and several Ivy League schools.

Nugent put on 40 pounds after arriving from Collierville, Tenn., as a 6-6 tight end. Purdue won his services over Georgia Tech and Memphis.

The 24-man class also featured a handful of players who contributed to the success of Tiller’s first three teams. The most notable was linebacker Mike Rose, who used his athletic ability to snare three interceptions against Northwestern in 1997, returning one for a touchdown.

Reserve defensive end Ike Moore was an unsung hero during the 2000 Rose Bowl season when he gave a pep talk to Brees following an interception that gave Ohio State the lead late in the game.

“If you break something, fix it!” Moore preached several times until he got Brees to snap out of his funk. Minutes later, Brees threw a game-winning touchdown pass to Seth Morales.

Wide receiver/kick returner Donald Winston, punter Danny Rogers and linebacker Brent Botts also made significant contributions in the years leading up to 2000.

As is usually the case during a coaching transition, Purdue’s recruiting board was not in good shape when Tiller came on board in November 1996.

The unanimous opinion of the recruiting experts was that the Boilermakers’ class of 1997 was 10^th in the Big Ten, barely ahead of Minnesota.

“They are entitled to their opinion,” Tiller told the Journal and Courier’s Tom Kubat.  “I never put a lot of stock in their opinions because they don’t evaluate players the way we do. I look at their work as entertainment, and in that respect it’s good for college football. It keeps people’s minds on the sport and keeps them talking about it.”

Tiller’s belief in his evaluation skills yielded surprising results from the 18-man class. Sometimes recruiting is about who you know, and Tiller’s relationship with Drew Bledsoe during his days at Washington State helped bring another Drew to West Lafayette from Texas.

Bledsoe was one of Brees’ football heroes, so much so that Brees wore a Washington State cap on his official visit to Purdue. But a knee injury suffered at the end of his junior season at Westlake High School scared off Texas and his parents’ alma mater, Texas A&M.

Despite a senior year that saw him earn Texas’ Class 5A Offensive Player of the Year honors while leading Westlake to a 16-0 state championship season, Brees was only recruited seriously by Kentucky and Purdue.

“I liked both coaching staffs. But at Purdue, I think I’m going to have a chance to get some early playing time and maybe start my second year,” Brees told Kubat leading up to signing day.

Check and Check. Brees saw limited action behind All-Big Ten quarterback Billy Dicken as a freshman. From then on, Brees blossomed into the 2000 Maxwell Award winner as college football’s most outstanding player. The Pro Football Hall of Fame awaits early in 2026.

That 10th-ranked Big Ten class also included future defensive end standout Akin Ayodele from Grand Prairie, Texas; Tim Stratton, who won the first John Mackey Award as the nation’s best tight end and a speedy receiver from West Palm Beach, Fla., named Vinny Sutherland.

Tiller’s basketball on grass offense took the Big Ten by surprise in 1997. The 9-3 season culminated with the first of two consecutive Alamo Bowl victories. The publicity also helped on the recruiting trail in 1998.

Travis Dorsch was a USA Today first-team All-American kicker coming out of Bozeman (Montana) High School. Dorsch lived up to the hype, as a four-year starting placekicker and winning the 2001 Ray Guy Award as the nation’s best punter.

The 27-man class possessed quantity and quality, including the final two pieces of that Rose Bowl line. Guard Gene Mruczkowski was the last player to commit but like Gorin, Light and Okobi he would develop into an NFL player. Purdue beat out West Virginia, Cincinnati and Toledo for the Cleveland native.

Rob Turner was shifted from the defensive line to offensive guard by Tiller after choosing the Boilermakers over Virginia Tech and Duke.

Purdue mined Texas for three running backs who would contribute to the Rose Bowl squad. Montrell Lowe was undersized at 5-9, 178 pounds, but was a first-team All-State performer and member of the Texas Top 100. Lowe would leave Purdue with 2,648 yards and 15 touchdowns.

Fullback Sedric Brown was pried out of Victoria, Texas, after rushing for 1,421 yards and 30 touchdowns as a senior. Steve Ennis led Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas to the Class 5A state title with 2,403 yards and 30 touchdowns his senior year.

Linebacker Joe Odom of Bethalto, Ill., was the St. Louis Post- Dispatch Player of the Year but Purdue was his only official visit. He would go on to play three seasons with the Chicago Bears.

Ralph Turner was converted from quarterback to safety, where he would start 38 games.

Future starting offensive linemen Kelly Kitchel (Lewis Cass) and Pete Lougheed (Homestead), along with Parade All-American wide receiver A.T. Simpson (Cathedral) helped make the 1998 class one of the deeper group of recruits in many nyears.

Although they ran out of eligibility before 2000, junior college transfers Randall Lane, Cliff Jackson and J. Crabtree helped continue the Boilermakers’ momentum under Tiller. Lane’s breakout game came in 1998 at Wisconsin, hauling in 18 of Brees’ record 83 passes for 178 yards. Jackson amassed 220 yards and two touchdowns before suffering an injury in 1998. Crabtree rushed for 602 yards and two TDs in 1998.

Next time, the freshman class that completed the run for the Roses.

Kenny Thompson is the former sports editor for the Lafayette Journal & Courier and an award-winning journalist. He has covered Purdue athletics for many years.