After last week’s road win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the Wisconsin Badgers football team returns to Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday afternoon to take on the Purdue Boilermakers. Also known as “the other Big Ten school in Indiana,” the West Lafayette-based Boilermakers currently have a 3-2 record, which seats them at third in the B1G West, behind the Huskers at No. 2 and our boys in red at No. 1, baby.
You know the drill by now, right? Here are some high-flying (literally) facts about Purdue. Go Bucky.
Quarterback U
Since the 1960s, Purdue University has been referred to as the “Cradle of Quarterbacks.” If my math is correct, Boilermaker signal callers have started a record 928 regular-season NFL games since 1950, a figure that Drew Brees is slated to extend to 929 on Sunday.
The school’s three Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks — Brees, Bob Griese and Len Dawson — ties it with Alabama for most all-time in that category. (Wisconsin? One. Russell Wilson, and we must share him with North Carolina State.) Even the Green Bay Packers have gotten in on some Purdue action: In 1939, they won a pre-Super Bowl era NFL championship with alum Cecil Isbell under center.
Purdue’s first-year head coach, Jeff Brohm, is a former NFL QB himself. His little brother Brian was drafted by the Packers in 2008 as a potential alternative to first-year starter Aaron Rodgers and is now Purdue’s co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Also, Astronaut U
Remember when I said high-flying? I wasn’t just talking about football. A staggering 23 future NASA astronauts have attended Purdue, including both the first and last men to walk on the moon: Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan, respectively. In fact, over one-third of NASA’s manned space missions have included at least one Purdue grad on the crew.
Get this party poppin’
One of Indiana’s favorite sons is also one of Purdue’s most famous alumni. The late Orville Redenbacher — he of the gourmet popping corn — graduated from Purdue way back in 1928 with a degree in agronomy. Though he began growing popcorn in his teens, Redenbacher didn’t actually do it professionally until the 1950s. After graduation, he put his agronomy degree to work as a fertilizer salesman. From poop to popcorn: truly, the American dream.
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