purdue played arizona in the bowl game.
purdue played arizona in the bowl game.
who does purdue play in the bowl game?
arizona
on december 5, 2016, brohm was hired by purdue university to be the head coach of the football team. brohm went to work right away on recruiting primarily the offensive and defensive lines as well as wide receiver bringing in five graduate transfers to help get instant depth, including two offensive linemen and a wide receiver. in his first ever game as head coach, purdue was defeated by #16 louisville 35-28 in a close game played at lucas oil stadium. the next week brohm achieved his first win at purdue with a 44–21 victory over ohio and followed that with a blowout win (35-3) at missouri. purdue hosted #8 michigan the next week in a game that many purdue fans saw as the turnaround they had been waiting for since tiller, despite losing 28-10. the game saw a sold out ross ade stadium, its first sell out since 2008 in joe tiller's final game as the purdue head coach. heading into week 8, jeff brohm and his team went into high point solutions stadium to face rutgers as they looked to improve 4-3 on the season, but would fall short on a two-point conversion, losing the game 12-14. however, purdue would win the 4th game of the season against lovie smith's illinois team. this would be the first time purdue had won 4 games in one season since danny hope's final season at purdue. in week 13, purdue went into iowa and won their biggest game of the season with a 24-15 win over the hawkeyes, and purdue would follow it up with the high point of the season taking the old oaken bucket in a win against indiana 31-24. not only was it a rivalry game, but both teams were 5-6, meaning the winner would become bowl eligible. purdue's win was the first for the program against their hated rivals since 2012. the six wins was enough to get purdue into the 2017 foster farms bowl, where they would face arizona. the bowl game made brohm the only the second head coach in purdue history, along with joe tiller, to take purdue to a bowl game in their first season as head coach.
jeff brohm
the #4-ranked and co-big ten champion hoosiers also came into the game with a 9–1 record, losing to minnesota a week before defeating purdue. a three-way league title championship was created when indiana, minnesota, and purdue all finished with 6–1 league records, each defeating and losing to one of the other. purdue was ineligible because of the "no-repeat" rule by the big ten and the "rose bowl or no bowl" rule enforced by both of the participating conferences (big ten and aawu). previously, purdue had played in the 1967 rose bowl, beating southern cal, 14–13. the conference's athletic directors voted to award the rose bowl bid to indiana over minnesota, albeit not unanimously. indiana was considered the logical choice because they were the only big ten school that had never played in the game. minnesota coach murray warmath argued in vain that the gophers deserved the bid because their prior two rose bowl teams, after the 1960 and 1961 seasons, received at-large bids because there was no agreement between the big ten and the rose bowl at the time; thus, technically, the gophers never had received a rose bowl bid pursuant to that arrangement. ironically, if purdue had beaten indiana in the season finale, the boilermakers would have had sole possession of the conference championship, but minnesota presumably would have received the rose bowl bid as the second place team in lieu of the ineligible boilers. instead, indiana scored a 19–14 upset over purdue, giving minnesota a share of the conference championship but costing them a trip to pasadena. quarterback harry gonso led the hoosiers into their first ever bowl game.
1968 rose bowl