Autumn Brees

He can laugh now, with a slew of school and Big Ten records to his credit, as well as a third-place finish in Heisman Trophy balloting and the Maxwell Award as the best all-around player in the nation.

And after watching Drew Brees lead the Purdue Boilermakers to a share of the Big Ten title and a Rose Bowl berth against the Washington Huskies, it’s difficult to believe that he had to beg college coaches to watch tapes of him quarterbacking Westlake High of Austin, Texas. Or that his mother had to call coaches around the country and ask them to consider her son for their teams.

His mother’s brother, Marty Akins, had been a wishbone quarterback at Texas, but the Longhorns didn’t want Brees. Nor did Texas A&M;, his childhood favorite and the school where his father, Chip, had played basketball.

When he visited North Carolina the summer before his senior year of high school--the year he led Westlake to the state title--the coaches weren’t interested in the tape he left. Essentially, they said don’t call us, we’ll call you--but don’t wait by the phone.

He wasn’t big, at 6 feet 1 and 220 pounds, and he wasn’t particularly mobile. His arm was accurate, but not overpowering. And the knee injury he had suffered his junior year didn’t enhance his iffy prospects.

But Joe Tiller saw qualities in Brees that no yardstick or stopwatch could measure: his heart and competitiveness. Hired to coach the downtrodden Boilermakers after molding high-scoring, pass-happy offenses at Wyoming, Tiller looked beneath the surface and saw Brees’ hunger and drive to excel.

Brees’ options, in the end, were Purdue and Kentucky. He chose Purdue, even though it seemed far from a perfect fit. Before he arrived in 1997, the Boilermakers had had only one .500 season in 12, and then only because a forfeit had lifted their 1994 record to 5-4-2. They averaged 17.6 points a game in 1996 and were 3-8, 2-6 in the Big Ten.

“The odds of Purdue going to the Rose Bowl any time soon were slim to none,” Brees said.

So much for the odds. Post them along Brees Way, the street named for him along the Wabash River in West Lafayette, Ind., and let everyone laugh. Purdue is in the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1967, an improbable and entertaining trip.

“We wouldn’t be here without Drew Brees,” Tiller said.

In leading the Boilermakers to an 8-3 record and a share of the Big Ten title, Brees was a finalist for nearly every major college football award. He has already carted home enough to fill a trophy case, among them the Maxwell, the Chicago Tribune Silver Football as the most valuable player in the Big Ten, the Big Ten offensive-player-of-the-year trophy and two awards for unselfishness and citizenship. After winning the first Socrates Award last year for academics, athletics and community service, he’s a finalist again.

But not even Bob Griese, who led the Boilermakers to a 14-13 victory over USC in their only other Rose Bowl appearance and forged a Hall of Fame career with the Miami Dolphins, had a street named after him.

“All the awards, everything, it’s been a great ride,” Brees said. “There’s been a lot of luck involved, a lot of being in the right place at the right time. I’ve had great coaches and I can look back at a great career.”

By his senior season, the kid who’d honed his accuracy in his backyard by hurling rocks at a telephone pole or a trash can was setting records nearly every time he threw.

Brees is Purdue’s all-time leader in passes thrown, 1,639; completions, 1,003; completion percentage, 61.2%; yards passing, 11,517; touchdowns passing, 88, and total offense, 12,442 yards. He’s the Big Ten career leader in all of those categories except completion percentage, where Chuck Long of Iowa, 1981-85, leads at 65%.

On the NCAA career list--which excludes bowl games--he ranks fourth in passes thrown, 1,525, and completions, 942; ninth in yards passing, 10,909; 12th in touchdown passes, 81, and fourth in total offense, 11,815 yards. He set an NCAA record with 83 passes in a 31-24 loss Oct. 10, 1998, at Wisconsin, and tied a record in that game by completing 55.

He has thrown 50 or more passes 10 times, usually launching 40-49 a game.

“I can’t throw every down every game,” he said, laughing. “It’s funny. We played Penn State the next week [after Wisconsin] and the quote from Joe Paterno was, ‘I’ve had teams that didn’t throw 83 passes in a season.’

“Purdue is going to do what we have to do to win. I’ve thrown 83 times and lost. Fifty seems to be the range I’m most comfortable with.”

That’s fine with Tiller.

“As a coach, you’re fortunate to coach a player like this once a decade,” Tiller said. “What impresses me is, he elevates the play of those around him. Our philosophy is to pass until we get hot, and when we get hot, keep passing.”

As a freshman in 1997, Brees played seven games behind Billy Dicken, completing 19 of 43 passes for 232 yards, with one interception. He didn’t overwhelm the coaches.

“We were convinced he was so good, we went out and recruited a junior college quarterback, David Edgerton,” Tiller said.

Brees himself can’t believe how raw he was.

“I’ve come miles and miles since my freshman year,” he said. “What I came with to Purdue was just confidence and skill in throwing the football. I didn’t know much about defenses. I didn’t know much about offenses like this. The mental part of the game is what I had to grasp quickly because I didn’t start as a true freshman. I always had the confidence and ability to throw. I had to grow.”

Given a chance in the 1998 season opener, the Pigskin Classic against USC at the Coliseum, Brees caught Tiller’s eye.

“He had a flawless first half,” Tiller said. “In the film room later, I remember marveling at one play, and even though he didn’t complete this pass, I was marveling how he did not get sacked. I shut the projector off and said to the coaches, ‘I think we’ve got ourselves a quarterback here.’ We lost the game [27-17], but it had absolutely nothing to do with him.”

In losing the game, they found a quarterback. As he gained experience, he became an outstanding rusher, gaining 546 yards this season and 925 in his career.

“He’s extremely intelligent and extremely mature, a real level-headed guy,” Tiller said. “The other thing that’s exceptional about him is, he has a great internal clock. In the old days, we used to say, ‘Johnny Unitas has eyes in the back of his head,’ and of course he didn’t, but it was this sense he had of when to throw. Drew just seems to have a sense for knowing when to throw and not throw it. It’s not something that you coach.”

Brees passed 473 times this season, down from 569 as a sophomore and 554 as a junior. His yards passing also declined, from 3,983 as a sophomore, to 3,909 as a junior, then to 3,393 as a senior. Tiller attributed that, however, to the team’s overall improvement.

“Where we’ve come from defensively, we haven’t had to throw the football as much as three years ago, when we had to throw to make some hay,” he said. “Drew’s numbers were down because the defense has been so dang-gum good. We’ve gone from seventh in the league to fourth in scoring defense and seventh to third in total defense.”

Brees has helped his receivers shine. Sixteen players caught at least one pass, led by senior wide receiver Vinny Sutherland with 65, freshman wide receiver John Standeford with 62, and junior tight end Tim Stratton with 56.

“If you’re open, he’ll find you,” Sutherland said.

He also finds time to make weekly visits to the Miller Elementary School in West Lafayette and read to kids, a program called “Gentle Giants.” He has been a spokesman for the American Lung Assn., the March of Dimes and the Muscular Dystrophy Assn.

“If he has a fault, it’s that he has a difficult time saying no to any charitable event,” Tiller said.

His prognosticating, however, may be faultless. Last summer, while at the Elite 11 camp in Southern California, he became friendly with Washington quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo. Impulsively, he told Tuiasosopo, “See you in the Rose Bowl.”

Guess what.

“I was just joking around,” Brees said. “It seemed like such a longshot for Purdue to get to the Rose Bowl.”

He should know, longshots do, occasionally, come in.

“My college career couldn’t end any better,” he said. “There couldn’t be a better ending--as long as we win.”

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