Continuing with the 60s; Plus Purdue Coach Who Came From, Went Back to H.S.
A member of the Buffalo Bills’ “Electric Company” is among a group of talented offensive linemen in this week’s countdown of the best Boilermakers by number.
Crashing this list of offensive linemen is arguably the best defensive tackle in school history and a Sports Illustrated Silver Anniversary team member.
61
Nick Hardwick
Hardwick didn’t play football at Lawrence North High School, where he helped the wrestling team win a state championship.
Inspired by Drew Brees and the 2000 Boilermakers’ run to the Rose Bowl, Hardwick decided to walk on the football team as a sophomore. One year later, Hardwick was an All-Big Ten center.
The San Diego Chargers took Hardwick in the third round of the 2004 NFL Draft. He started all 136 games during his career and was selected to the Chargers’ 50th Anniversary Team.
62
Dave Butz
Massive for his time (6-7, 280 pounds), Butz was a consensus All-American defensive tackle in 1972. He was such an outstanding athlete that he received a scholarship offer from Kentucky basketball coach Adolph Rupp.
For his career, Butz made 108 tackles – 21 for loss – and eight pass breakups.
Michigan coach Bo Schembechler called Butz “the greatest defensive lineman I had ever seen.” The NFL agreed, with the St. Louis Cardinals drafting him fifth overall in 1973. Butz played 16 seasons in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls with Washington.
63
Pete Quinn
When he wasn’t imitating Elvis Presley for classmates, Quinn was a key member of three bowl championship teams from 1978-80.
Quinn was a two-time second-team All-Big Ten selection. He was selected as the center on Purdue’s All-Time Football Team in 1987.
64
Kevin Pamphile
A converted defensive tackle, Pamphile took advantage of the move to offensive tackle before his sophomore year in 2010.
Pamphile developed into a two-year starter for the Boilermakers. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made him a fifth-round pick in 2014. Pamphile started 35 games during a six-year pro career.
65
Tom Bettis
Bettis was a two-time Purdue MVP and was named an All-American guard in 1954.
He played nine seasons in the NFL with Green Bay, Pittsburgh and Chicago. Bettis coached in the NFL for 30 seasons, including as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl IV coaching staff under fellow Boilermaker Hank Stram.
Bettis was selected to the Purdue All-Time Football Team in 1987. In 2000, he was elected to the Leroy Keyes Purdue Athletic Hall of Fame.
66
Gene Selawski
Selawski is among a small group of offensive linemen to earn All-America honors at Purdue. The offensive tackle was cited by the Football Writers Association of America in 1958.
He was one of many Ohio imports who went on to star for the Boilermakers under Jack Mollenkopf in the 1950s and ‘60s. Selawski would play three seasons of pro ball with the Los Angeles Rams, Cleveland Browns and San Diego Chargers.
67
Uche Nwaneri
Nwaneri was one of the last standout offensive linemen to play for Joe Tiller, starting at guard in 2004 and 2006.
The Jacksonville Jaguars drafted Nwaneri in the fifth round in 2007. He would start 92 games for the Jaguars from 2007-13.
68
Dennis Kelly
Originally asked to pay his way to attend Purdue before going on scholarship in 2009, the 6-8 Kelly bulked up to 270 pounds and played as a true freshman.
Kelly would go on to start 37 games and anchored an offensive line in 2010 that blocked for a school record five consecutive 200-yard rushing games. He was a two-time Offensive MVP for the Boilermakers.
The Philadelphia Eagles took Kelly in the fifth round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He would play 12 seasons in the NFL.
69
Loyal “Doc” Combs
Combs was an All-Big Ten end and Purdue’s Most Valuable Player in 1941. He would be honored in 1967 by Sports Illustrated as a member of its Silver Anniversary All-America team.
After spending the 1942 season with the Philadelphia Eagles, Combs entered Marquette Medical School. For all but two years between 1956 and 1994, Combs would serve as the Purdue team physician.
70
Donnie Green
Influenced by fellow Virginia native Leroy Keyes to play at Purdue, Green was a dominating offensive tackle at 6-8 from 1968-70.
“I remember Donnie as the biggest football player I had ever seen,” Keyes said in 2004.
After earning AP and UPI All-America honors as a senior, Green was selected in the fifth round by the Buffalo Bills. He became a starter at right tackle in his second season. The following year, as a member of the “Electric Company” alongside fellow linemen Dave Foley, Reggie McKenzie, Mike Montler, Joe Delamielleure and tight end Paul Seymour, Green helped O.J. Simpson rush for an NFL record 2,003 yards.
Next time, an All-American tight end and two future Super Bowl champions with the New England Patriots.
Football notes
When Barry Odom coaches the Purdue football team against Southern Illinois on Saturday night, he has a chance to do something no first-year Boilermaker head coach has done in over a century.
The most recent Purdue coach to begin his career with a 2-0 record was none other than the immortal Cleo O’Donnell in 1916. Hired away from Everett High School in Massachusetts, O’Donnell led the Boilermakers past DePauw 13-0 and Wabash College 28-7 before losing at Iowa 24-6. Purdue finished 2-4-1 that year and 3-4 in 1917 before O’Donnell went back to Massachusetts to coach at Somerville High School.
Approaching the conclusion of the 2016 season, O’Donnell was blunt in his request for more support from alumni. “They are not loyal when they know of a good athlete and then sit quietly by and let some other school grab him off.” O’Donnell was reported as saying in the Nov. 10, 1916, edition of the Lafayette Journal. “The trouble with Purdue graduates is that they spend more time criticizing than they do boosting.
“One trouble with Purdue is that the men have been taught to be satisfied with a fair showing. That does not appeal to me. I am satisfied with nothing less than victory.”
O’Donnell’s pleas were ignored and it would be another decade before the first golden age of Purdue football would arrive with the coaching of James Phelan and Noble Kizer. Phelan and Kizer came from Notre Dame where then as now a fair showing will get a coach fired.
One of O’Donnell’s sons achieved some notoriety in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Kenneth O’Donnell was the special assistant to President John F. Kennedy. In the 2000 film “Thirteen Days,” Kenneth O’Donnell was portrayed by Kevin Costner. …
Purdue’s 31-0 victory against Ball State marked the first time since 1964-65 that the Boilermakers posted a season-opening shutout in consecutive years. Jack Mollenkopf’s 1964 squad opened with a 17-0 triumph against Ohio on its way to a 6-3 record. The 1965 Boilermakers whipped Miami (Ohio) 38-0 and would finish 7-2-1. …
Devin Mockobee only carried the ball 14 times, but his 59 yards allowed him to become the eighth Boilermaker to achieve 2,500 for his career. He’s now seventh on the career list with 2,521 yards. …
Ryan Browne’s 49-yard touchdown pass to Arhmad Branch on the second play of the Ball State game is the fastest Purdue touchdown since Jimmy Smith took the opening kickoff 100 yards to the end zone to start the 1981 season against Stanford.
Bottom of the barrel
The Ball State victory began to cure the hangover from arguably the worst football season in school history. Believe it or not, though, there have been 11 worse coaching hires in the 21st century than Ryan Walters, according to CBSSports.com.
Writer John Talty nailed it when he described his list as “the hires that still make you shudder if you’re a fan of the program. The coaches who delivered lows you didn’t even believe were possible.”
Notre Dame fans will recognize two names in Talty’s top 10 but thankfully for the Fighting Irish, Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis are cited for their failures elsewhere. Willingham is slotted at No. 6 for going 11-37 at Washington and Weis’ 6-22 mark at Kansas ranked him fifth. Atop Talty’s top 25 were two men who never set foot on the sideline at Alabama and Pittsburgh, Mike Price and Michael Haywood, due to inappropriate behavior and felony domestic violence charges, respectively.
Walters was ranked two spots ahead of Darrell Hazell, who previously held the title of worst Purdue football coach of the last 100 years. Talty poured salt on the open wound of the 2024 season when he wrote “you could basically flip a coin on which coach was the worse hire.”
Walters got the nod for going 5-19 after inheriting a program from Jeff Brohm that had gone 9-4 and 8-5 before his departure to hometown Louisville.
“Walters was a trendy defensive coordinator name but clearly wasn’t ready for a supersized Big Ten for his first head coaching opportunity,” Talty writes.
Noting that Purdue fans should be careful what they wish for, Talty reminds them that Hazell’s hire came about when they wanted more out of the program than back-to-back bowl games under Danny Hope.
“Instead, there was incompetency and despair in Hazell,” Talty writes. “For a program that experienced consistent success under Joe Tiller, blowout losses to Northern Illinois and Central Michigan were hard to swallow.”
Hazell went 9-33 before he was fired midway through the 2016 season.
Kenny Thompson is the former sports editor for the Lafayette Journal & Courier and an award-winning journalist. He has covered Purdue athletics for many years.