IN THE BOILERROOM

The turnaround business can be tricky.

Do too well, too soon, and everybody wants more.

Purdue Coach Joe Tiller took over a Boilermaker team that had posted only one winning season since 1984, then managed a 9-3 record and a trip to the Alamo Bowl last season in his first year at the school.

Now what will he do, after losing all but four regulars from his high-scoring offense?

“The people who followed us last year and enjoyed it expect things, and you just cringe,” Tiller said. “They say, ‘Should I order my Rose Bowl tickets?’ and I say, ‘Holy Toledo, we’re not playing UCLA in the regular season.’ ”

Purdue is playing USC, however, and when the teams meet Sunday at the Coliseum in the Pigskin Classic, it won’t be so much a marquee matchup as a chance for two teams that figure they could use a little extra work to play a 12th game.

USC has a new coach in Paul Hackett, who is trying to pull his own turnaround after the Trojans’ back-to-back six-win seasons under John Robinson. Hackett also is breaking in a nearly brand-new quarterback in sophomore Mike Van Raaphorst, who has two starts to his name.

Purdue, which finished last season ranked 15th but isn’t ranked in the preseason polls, has a young quarterback as well. His name is Drew Brees, a sophomore who appeared in seven games last season as the backup to Billy Dicken, who passed for 3,136 yards as Purdue finished seventh in the nation in total offense and averaged 33 points a game.

Tiller pulled his turnaround magic with an offensive scheme he brought with him from Wyoming, one that was an anomaly in the Big Ten Conference--a one-back, wide-open passing attack much like Washington State’s.

There was that--and a Big Ten schedule that didn’t include Ohio State or Michigan, Tiller acknowledges.

After a shaky start--Purdue lost to Toledo, 36-22, in Tiller’s first game--the Boilermakers went on a roll, beating Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Michigan State and losing only two more times, against Iowa and Penn State, before beating Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl.

Nine wins and three losses, on the heels of 3-8, is never anything to sneeze at. But it wasn’t exactly a banner year for Notre Dame, Illinois was 0-11, and the combined record of the teams Purdue defeated was 45-62. The teams that beat them, led by Penn State, went 25-11.

“We were fortunate in that we came in with a new system,” said Tiller, who was given a contract extension through 2003 and was a finalist for national coach of the year. “We’re not naive, we know we came in and showed people things they haven’t seen in the past.

“Last year we had the element of surprise, and also the fact Purdue had been down a dozen years. Even when Purdue won football games here and there, I’m sure the coaches got ready, but for players who remembered how they had lined up and whupped Purdue before, it was harder.”

Instead of classic Big Ten football, Purdue went classic Big Sky, opening it up.

“People were skeptical, in one word,” Tiller said. “I think there were a lot of folks skeptical of whether this offense would be successful in this environment. We had a lot of players on our squad who felt that way. That’s not true anymore.

“We may still have doubting Thomases out there. If I had not seen it work before, I might want to see it stand the test of time for three or four years before I lined up behind it.”

This season, the task is lining up the players. Brees has a stronger arm than Dicken and a strikingly successful background. He led his Texas high school team, Austin Westlake, to a 28-0-1 record in two years as a starting quarterback, winning the large-school state championship.

“We love him, but he’s a young kid who’s never played,” said Jim Chaney, Purdue’s offensive coordinator.

Tiller said David Edgerton, a junior college transfer, has been able to put some heat on Brees, who has taken only about 70 snaps in his college career.

“[Brees] is highly talented and has an extremely accurate arm. He’s only about 6 feet, 6-1, but he puts the ball on the body. He’s very competitive, very bright,” Tiller said.

“We like his potential, yet we recognize you don’t win on potential. We hope his performance matches his potential.”

For now, like USC, Purdue must count on defense. Besides Dicken, the Boilermakers lost star receiver Brian Alford and their top two running backs.

The best player on this year’s team is defensive end Rosevelt Colvin, an outstanding senior pass rusher who leads a group of eight returning defensive starters.

USC’s defense has such players as linebackers Chris Claiborne and Mark Cusano and cornerback Daylon McCutcheon.

“We think USC’s defense is even better than the best team we played last year, Michigan State,” Tiller said. “We think in our short time here at Purdue, this [USC team] will be the best defense we’ve seen.”

Tiller hoped the Boilermakers’ performance last year would bring more potential stars to Purdue’s doorstep, but the results haven’t been as immediate or dramatic as he would have liked.

“We feel like we got in on some better players than certainly we were in on in the year before, but we’re not to where we’d like to be,” he said. “We’d like to have guys lining up to come. It’s still a short line, but it’s a little more talented line.”

Not nearly as talented as the line outside USC’s door, he’ll tell you. For Purdue, an invitation to the Coliseum is a little like a welcome mat to the big time, since all those Big Ten games are mandatory invites and Notre Dame is an in-state rival.

USC and Purdue have played only three times, but Purdue’s 1967 Rose Bowl victory over the Trojans was one of the great moments in Purdue history. A last-chance interception of a USC two-point conversion attempt gave the Boilermakers a 14-13 victory.

This year’s team will tour the Rose Bowl on Monday after the game. The idea is to get back there some day, though it probably won’t be this year.

“Once you achieve a certain level of success, even though it might be very brief, it’s human nature to want to raise the bar a little bit,” Tiller said. “I think our players expect more of themselves. . . . I think our players have done a very good job handling it. I’m not sure everyone else has.”

SUNDAY’S GAME

USC vs. Purdue

Time: 11:30 a.m.

Site: Coliseum

TV: Ch. 7

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