Jeff Brohm to leave WKU for Purdue opening
Western Kentucky coach Jeff Brohm is headed to Purdue, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke with Paste BN Sports on the condition of anonymity because the school had not yet announced the move.
Brohm, 45, is a former NFL quarterback and coaching disciple of Bobby Petrino, who took over at Western Kentucky after Petrino’s one-year stint in Bowling Green. Since then he’s posted a 30-10 record and is coming off back-to-back Conference USA championships.
Purdue is coming off a terrible run the last four seasons under Darrell Hazell in which it won just nine total games. Hazell was fired midway through this season, shortly after the arrival of new athletics director Mike Bobinski.
Purdue explored several options for this job, including former LSU coach Les Miles. It was hoping to make a pitch to Western Michigan coach PJ Fleck, but late last week the Purdue search team got word that it was unlikely they would get a meeting. Thus, they turned their attention to Brohm, whose wide-open offense has the potential to shake up the Big Ten West.
Brohm also met with Baylor over the weekend and was considered the top target for Cincinnati, where Tommy Tuberville stepped down on Sunday. Though Cincinnati may have been a better fit in some ways, Purdue’s financial package was expected to be well over $3 million per year, which would be difficult for Cincinnati to match.
Western Kentucky could turn to an internal candidate in Tony Levine, the former Houston coach who helped build much of the roster that Tom Herman coached the last two seasons. Levine is currently the special teams coordinator and receivers coach at Western Kentucky. Another possible candidate is Idaho coach Paul Petrino, the brother of Bobby Petrino, who just led Idaho to an 8-4 season.
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