Purdue coach Jeff Brohm was nearly Tennessee's Josh Heupel years ago | Estes

Instead of Josh Heupel in Knoxville, there could have been Jeff Brohm.

Back in 2017, Brohm was nearly Heupel before Heupel — an innovative hire to put the “O” back in the Big Orange. Brohm, too, was known as an offensive mind, for exciting football, for slinging it around and scoring a lot of points.

Brohm won 12 games at Western Kentucky in 2016 with an offense that led the FBS with 45.5 points per game. Then he went to Purdue and managed to go 7-6 (including four Big Ten wins) in Year One with a program that'd won three Big Ten games the previous four years.

Looking back, Brohm was probably too good for the historic clown show that was Tennessee's post-Butch Jones coaching search. The one so farcical that it got AD John Currie fired, and Phillip Fulmer ended up hiring Jeremy Pruitt (how that'd work out?).

But Brohm, briefly, was tied up in it. Reports got out that he was close to taking the Tennessee job. While those reports never came to fruition, there was something behind them. That’s according to Brohm himself.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” is how Brohm answered the following spring when I asked him about discussions with Tennessee. That was while I was working for the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Brohm’s hometown and former stomping grounds as a college quarterback.

“There’s always going to be people going behind closed doors, expressing interest in this job and that job. Those things, yeah, those things did come about,” said Brohm, who declined to delve into details of those talks. “… When it’s all said and done, this is, in my opinion, the best spot for me.”

Years later, Purdue is still Brohm’s spot. He’ll end his fifth season by leading the Boilermakers into next week’s Music City Bowl against Heupel’s Tennessee.

Of Heupel, Brohm told me last week, “He’s done a very, very good job.” Purdue (8-4) will arrive in Nashville with the eighth-best passing offense in the FBS. Matched against up-tempo Tennessee (7-5), the similarities between prolific offenses make an enticing storyline.

“There’s some,” Brohm said. “We’re probably a little more pro-style, NFL terminology, with some spread principles. And they’re definitely all about tempo and spreading the field and extremely wide splits and getting the ball on the perimeter. … It is unique. We don’t see much of that in the Big Ten.”

I like Brohm. Most people who've gotten to know Brohm like him. He's genuine in a way that's unlike most successful football coaches.

With most coaches, I'd be surprised he's still coaching Purdue. With Brohm, I'm not.

Well, I'm not anymore.

A year after flirting with the Vols, he turned down an offer to succeed Bobby Petrino as head coach at U of L. It was Brohm's college — in his hometown. I surely thought he was going to take it. Pretty much everyone in Louisville thought he was going to take it.

But he didn’t, even when the whole courtship became very public and emotional among Brohm’s family. If you think that’s a sign of loyalty, years ago as Louisville’s offensive coordinator, Brohm reportedly turned down a chance to run Nick Saban’s offense in the early days of Saban’s tenure at Alabama.

Really, the list of opportunities that Brohm hasn’t jumped at over the years is longer than the ones he did. But that’s indicative of his personality.

Vol Nation would have liked Brohm, I believe.

He’s a former pro quarterback who still likes to ask what part of town you’re living in as a way to discuss schools and directions and the best routes to drive. It's kind of like a neighbor who just finished mowing his yard. Except that neighbor beat two top-five opponents this season (Iowa and Michigan State).

He’s a college coach making millions who famously continued to drive an old 2004 Honda Accord to work every day at Purdue.

It’s true. I once saw the car in a parking space at Purdue. It had a Kentucky tag.

When Purdue’s top players — wide receiver David Bell and defensive end George Karlaftis — recently opted out of Music City Bowl to begin preparing for the NFL, Brohm was supportive but said, “I know what my opinion is because I’m old-school.”

You may think he’s just saying that. But remember the original XFL? If you do, you might remember Brohm, as a quarterback, taking a hard shot one week and returning the next. His campy pregame interview became legendary, saying a lot about the XFL but a little about Brohm: “Do I or do I not currently have a pulse? Yes, I do. Let’s play football.”

Delightful.

Ask some Purdue fans. They’ll tell you all about it. "Let's Play Football" became a popular slogan around West Lafayette. The town once adored its coach. I wonder if it still does. As tends to happen in his business, Brohm went from flavor of the month to hot seat rather quickly. After two promising seasons, his 2019 Purdue team went 4-8. A shortened 2020 season ended with a 2-4 record.

Offense is Brohm’s specialty, but focusing on defense is actually how he steered Purdue back to 8-4 this season. He revamped his defensive coaching staff, and the Boilermakers went from 73rd nationally to 19th in scoring defense.

“I wanted the same kind of attacking philosophy (on defense) that we use on offense here,” Brohm said, “where we take some chances, we’re willing to gamble, we play aggressive, we go for the win.”

One day, Purdue’s journey in 2021 could hold lessons for Tennessee. Especially this aspect of the Boilermakers' improvement: They went from 108th to 21st nationally in time of possession. Brohm doesn’t use tempo offensively to the extent that Heupel does. But he does use it, and he throws the ball a lot — “I’m not going to say pass-heavy,” Heupel said of Brohm, “but it is a major part of what they do.”

Brohm’s teams — like Heupel's — had been routinely been among the worst in college football in time of possession. Until this season.

Which is why I asked Brohm about facing the same perception that Heupel faces: That Heupel wouldn’t be able to win the SEC – and that Brohm once couldn’t win the Big Ten – by playing a brand of offense that asked defenses to be on the field so much.

“There’s nothing wrong with being aggressive in your approach,” Brohm said. “And that’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to keep his foot on the gas until it’s not working. And then maybe he might change. But at the same time, it’s got him seven wins this year.

“They score points on offense, so he’s not going to slow down.”

If anyone would know, it'd be Brohm.

He doesn't want to slow down much, either. Even if he's driving a beat-up, old Honda, he'll know how to avoid traffic.

Reach Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Purdue's Jeff Brohm could have been Tennessee's Josh Heupel years ago