As the Tennessee Volunteers were looking to figure out what they were going to do with their head coaching search in Knoxville, Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm was out recruiting. But families of recruits were not quite sure if Brohm would be coming to them looking to sell kids on going to Purdue or Tennessee. Recent quotes to The Courier-Journal in Louisville suggest there was some truth to the interest Brohm had in leaving the Boilermakers for the Vols.’
“I don’t want to get into details on it. Like I said, where there’s smoke there’s fire,” Brohm told the paper regarding the headlines that suggested Brohm was closing in on a deal to head to Tennessee after one season at Purdue. “But I think that I was completely straightforward with the people I needed to be. Like I said, when it’s all said and done, this is, in my opinion, the best spot for me.”
After three seasons as the head coach at Western Kentucky, Brohm took over the Purdue job last year and quickly provided a breath of fresh air for the Boilermakers. Purdue went 7-6 with the first bowl victory for the program since 2011. Brohm’s performance at Purdue quickly made him one of the trendy names in the rumor mill during the coaching carousel, and likely will keep him a hot name for potential job opportunities elsewhere later this year if Purdue continues to show improvement. Brohm is also open and honest about the reality of the coaching game, acknowledging he may not necessarily keep any doors shut.
“There’s always going to be people going behind closed doors, expressing interest in this job and that job,” Brohm said. “Those things, yeah, those things did come about. But I think I was always honest with everybody and kept it real. In the end, I think this is the place I enjoy being because I think it does have a great challenge to it and I am committed to doing my part to try to help us get over the hump and become a winning program.”
After initially closing in on a deal to hire Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano to be the head coach, Tennessee backed off from the hire and eventually landed Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt for the job.