First, a synopsis.
In 1997 Joe Tiller was hired as head coach at Purdue, which at the time was a basketball school that happened to have a football team, Boilermakers football hadn’t had a winning season since 1984, the men’s basketball team had four top 10 finishes during that time. Tiller and his then-leading edge spread offense went 9-3 in his first year, going from 93rd in scoring to 18th and he wouldn’t have a losing season until going 5-6 in 2005. In 9 of his 11 seasons Purdue football was at one point ranked, during that time Purdue basketball was ranked 7 times.