Joe Tiller brought a youthful coaching staff to Purdue and, though he had to fill roles, settled into a groove that led to that Rose Bowl game 25 years ago.
Editor's note: This story is a second in a series related to Purdue's 2000 football season.
Perhaps it was youthful naivety at the time, but when Joe Tiller accepted the Purdue football coaching job in December 1996, Scott Downing assumed a smooth transition and continued winning ways that Tiller had established at Wyoming.
"We believed in all the coaches, believed in the program that Joe Tiller set up while we were at Wyoming," Downing, who spent 16 years working alongside Tiller at Wyoming and Purdue, said. "All the coaches believed in what we were doing. Then, the key was for our program to be bought in to by the players.
"Our players at Purdue bought in."
Turns out it wasn't so naive of Downing to think Purdue, a program without a winning record since 1984, could immediately succeed with Tiller's system in 1997.
But if the Boilermakers were going to be in contention for Big Ten titles, Tiller would have to surround himself with the right staff.
Joe Tiller puts together all-star cast of coaches at Purdue
If a jump from the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) to the Big Ten was going to be a smooth transition, Tiller knew he needed a staff he could count on.
Wyoming offensive coordinator Larry Korpitz, co-defensive coordinators Brock Spack — a former Purdue linebacker and assistant coach — and Tim Lappano, and assistants Danny Hope, Randy Melvin, Tim Burke, Jim Chaney and Downing all agreed to pack their bags for West Lafayette, Indiana.
"A lot of those guys, they connected more with the players," Rocco Foggio, a redshirt freshman defensive lineman in 1997, recalled. "When I came in under (former Purdue coach Jim) Colletto, everybody was older. You had guys in their 50s and 60s. So when you had guys come in, like coach (Greg) Olson and coach Hope and coach Chaney, you know, these guys were in their their early 30s, so there was more of a connection with some 20-year-olds, and we communicated well."
Korpitz, one of the masterminds behind Wyoming's offensive attack that averaged nearly 40 points a game in 1996, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor before his final season with the Cowboys. Korpitz resigned from Purdue in July 1997 to return to Laramie, Wyoming. Less than a week later, at 46 years old, Korpitz died.
Chaney was elevated to offensive coordinator for a team that averaged 33 points per game. Greg Olson became a late staff addition, coming from Idaho. Olson and Tiller previously crossed paths, coaching on the same Washington State staff during the 1989 season.
"Jim Chaney was the best play caller I’ve been around," All-American receiver Vinny Sutherland said. "Greg Olson was a phenomenal hire. What he did with quarterbacks was nothing short of miraculous. (Offensive line coach) Danny Hope, a major identity of our team was the Danny Hope product. He was fierce."
Before a long NFL coaching career, Olson padded his resume mentoring Boilermaker quarterbacks, including Big Ten record breaker Drew Brees.
"I can't say enough about Joe Tiller and what he did for me in my career, and really for all of us that were there, very fortunate, but just had a presence about him," Olson said. "He was tough, and I think Purdue needed that at that time he came in there."
Olson's hire finalized the 1997 Purdue coaching staff and, as Downing suspected, the success translated quite well. After losing its season opener at Toledo, the Boilermakers wouldn't drop another game until November and finished 9-3, including an Alamo Bowl victory over Oklahoma State, the first postseason win for Purdue since the 1980 Liberty Bowl.
Coach retention and additions
Tiller was able to keep all but one member of Purdue's coaching staff after the 1997 season. Co-defensive coordinator Lappano joined the Seattle Seahawks staff. Seeing an opening, a former Purdue football standout who was coaching elsewhere in the Big Ten made a phone call.
"I'd been at Minnesota with Jim Wacker, who is a great guy," Kevin Sumlin said. "First year with Mace (Glen Mason, who was hired as Gophers coach in 1997), I was coaching quarterbacks with a guy named Elliot Uzelac and I was miserable."
Sumlin was a teammate of Spack's at Purdue while Tiller was then Boilermaker defensive coordinator. Tiller and Sumlin had worked together at Washington State and Wyoming before he joined Minnesota's staff in 1993.
"I said, 'Hey Joe, you've got to let me come back. I've got to get out of here,'" Sumlin, who'd later become the coach at Houston, Texas A&M and Arizona, said. "He hired me back."
Sumlin was tasked with coaching receivers in Purdue's spread offense. His first season was Brees' first as Purdue's starting quarterback. In three seasons, Sumlin coached Chris Daniels and Vinny Sutherland to first-team All-Big Ten honors.
"I think the reason you saw so much talent come out of that room, the wide receiver room, was definitely because of the relationship that coach Sumlin had, the knowledge that he had," former receiver AT Simpson said. "He made sure that we were always prepared."
With Sumlin on board, the same staff remained intact for the 1998 and '99 seasons in which Purdue went 16-9.
Finalizing a championship coaching staff
Defensive backs coach Tim Burke left Purdue to join the Kansas Jayhawks after the 1999 season. Defensive ends coach Randy Melvin was hired by the New England Patriots. For the first time at Purdue, Tiller would have to make multiple coaching staff hires in the offseason.
Purdue hired one young rising coach and one with plenty of knowledge from his NFL playing days.
Gary Emanuel shifted from coaching interior defensive linemen to coaching ends. That opened the door for Mark Hagen, a former player for Purdue's biggest rival Indiana, who was four years into his first full-time college coaching job at Northern Illinois.
"Early on, coach Tiller wanted to hire an older coach. I believe I was 30 at the time, and so, we went through the process and didn't look like it was going to work out," Hagen, who coached two stints at Purdue and coaches at Louisville, said . "In late March, they brought me in and he hired me about a week before spring ball started. I didn't know I would be there 11 years."
That solidified the defensive front, but Purdue's biggest question mark entering the 2000 season was its secondary. Enter Ken Greene, the 19th pick in the 1978 NFL Draft. Under Greene, one of Purdue's perceived weaknesses became one of its strengths.
"Coach Green made an immediate impact. He took pride in what we were doing," safety Brady Doe said. "He was a guy you wanted to work hard for. The DBs, our nickname was ATC, air traffic control. We had a pride in what we were doing. He brought in some new defensive concepts we hadn’t run before."
'Nobody had egos' on Purdue football coaching staff
It was a collective four-year effort to bring Purdue its first Big Ten title in 33 years.
Joe Tiller was the orchestrator, but players also took note that Tiller didn't micromanage people he hired to coach.
"It’s one of the better staffs I’ve been on with the relationships the coaches had with each other," Emanuel, who coached at nine colleges and four NFL teams during a career that lasted more than four decades, said. "We had some very good coaching on that staff. Nobody had egos. Everybody was helping each other. Everybody pitched in with recruiting and dealing with players."
In one of his final conversations with Tiller, former All-American safety Stuart Schweigert, the Big Ten Freshman of the Year during Purdue's 2000 championship season, heard the truth straight from the horse's mouth.
Tiller told Schweigert he wasn't the smartest coach in the room while leading the Boilermakers.
"When I went on to play in the NFL, I was amazed how bad some of the coaching is," Schweigert said. "These guys hire guys who know less than them so they can control them. Joe didn’t have any ego. He said I hire guys that know way more about football, but I know how to manage those guys. That’s what made him great and that’s why he had great coaching staffs."
That said, no one ever questioned who ran the program.
"The way (Tiller) would motivate guys, he wasn’t a player’s coach. He wasn’t your buddy." defensive lineman Craig Terrill said. "But you respected him and he demanded the best of you. At the time, it can rub guys the wrong way because you want your coach to see it your way a little more. As I’ve grown, it kind of exposes the genius of that coaching staff. As good as the players were on that team, the coaching staff was equally as good."
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue football Rose Bowl coaching staff under Joe Tiller was smart, respected
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