COLUMN: Jeff Brohm’s Can-Do Attitude Is What The Big Ten Needs Now

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Among possessing a lot of other things such as the ability to answer a honest question with an honest answer, Jeff Brohm is one of the few Big Ten coaches that can say he has a winning record against Urban Meyer.

On the night of Oct. 20, 2018, 60,716 people in West Lafayette, Ind., and millions of folks nationwide watched Brohm’s speed offense, born in the horse race country of Louisville, Ken., and assisted by the magic of Rondale Moore, trample all over then-No. 2 Ohio State 49-20 to the delight of Tyler Trent and the dismay of Meyer’s Buckeyes program.

Off the field, Brohm possesses humility (his 2004 Honda Accord as his personal vehicle shows this) while Meyer thinks he’s God’s gift to the gridiron. Brohm, who was an Illinois assistant coach under Ron Zook from 2010-11, is brave enough to stand up in front of the other 13 Big Ten coaches and say the league should adopt a public injury report and until that day comes, the Purdue coach still gives his team’s injury updates every Thursday to local journalists. Instead of bolting to his hometown alma mater (when the pressure mounted from inside his own family to do so), Brohm stood his ground and said as long as Purdue remained loyal to him, he’d remain loyal to them. And thanks to the Oct. 2018 miracle night, Brohm’s 1-0 undefeated record against Meyer on the field represents him as the last man to defeat Ohio State in a regular season game.

And if this latest seven-page report Brohm has created works for a league searching for a safe environment to play two truncated football seasons in one calendar, Brohm might as well put another ‘W’ on the board against Meyer.

The sainted Urban Meyer, who was earlier this summer named by the Big Ten Network as the league's "Coach of the Decade", doesn’t think it can be done. Doesn’t want anything to do with the idea. It’s not safe according to the two-time national champion coach.

To his credit, Meyer has never claimed it is safe to play college football without a vaccine or a plan of a majority of medical opinions on how to control this virus during the pandemic either. However, playing two seasons (a spring and a fall) is just asking too much from players and he’s not able to picture it happening. And since Meyer can’t see it happening, I guess we should all anticipate how the 14 Big Ten athletics departments are going to handle nine-figure deficits over the next several years. Right? Not so fast, Brohm says.

Brohm’s plan, which calls for an eight-game regular season in the spring, starting at the end of February and ending in mid-April, with a playoff that begins and ends in May and then a fall 2021 season that runs 10 games and starts Oct. 2, with a traditional postseason, seems to temporarily and possibly permanently rethink what millionaire coaches need to get to ready for a season.

“I think it was important to put something together that proves it’s doable to have a spring season,” Brohm told Sports Illustrated senior writer Pat Forde. “For these football players, especially our seniors, this gives them a chance to have a season.”

The innovation of Brohm’s idea could fundamentally change how big-time college programs approach a week of practice in future fall seasons. If this plan, which calls for guidelines such as “only one padded practice per week during each regular season” and “two days off per week in each four-week training camp” does work, it might force some millionaire college football coaches (of which Brohm is one of the highest paid in the nation) to rethink its practice culture for future seasons. In the midst of a CTE era of tackle football, the question by program leaders of do we as a program unnecessarily hit too much during the week might finally have an answer.

Brohm resides on a campus that has produced astronauts, 25 of them, and I’m guessing all of them were told by successful politicians or pundits (which, until he wants to make a clear run at Clay Helton’s job at Southern California, is what Meyer is now) what they were trying to accomplish was impossible. Neil Armstrong was convinced trying to get to the moon was just something that had never been done but an exercise worth pursuing. Purdue is home to the first person on the moon (Armstrong) and the most recent astronaut to walk on the moon (Gene Cernan). In the far less important world of intercollegiate football, Brohm is trying to take his version of one small step for man.

Brohm is interested in figuring out a solution to a problem for the purpose of survival. Meyer is interested in reminding us all of the importance of his opinion. I’m sorry but right now, I’m going to side with the critical thinker in that choice. Won’t you join Jeff Brohm? He currently might be the most important figure to college football’s future in the Midwest since Amos Alonzo Stagg.