From a football team with back to back conference championships to a team in dire needs for help.

Jeff Brohm, Former Head Coach at Western Kentucky University signed a six-year contract for $20 million to coach the Purdue Boilermakers football team.

After going 30-10 in three seasons as the hilltoppers coach, he will be calling West Lafayette and Purdue University home. The departure of Brohm was a shock to some fans and students at Western Kentucky. Brohm now has the chance of coaching in the Big Ten, which is a power conference in the NCAA.

Brohm was a standout high school player at Trinity High School in Louisville. He was named the “Kentucky High School Player of the Decade” for the 1980s and won the Kentucky “Mr. Football” Award in 1988 while leading his team to a state championship and undefeated season. Brohm was inducted as a member of the 2014 Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame class. After high school, Brohm played for the University of Louisville football team and played in the NFL for the Chargers, Redskins, 49ers, Buccaneers, Broncos and Browns. He appeared in eight NFL games. After his playing days, he jumped into the coaching role.

He replaced Bobby Petrino when he took the Louisville coaching job. Brohm was also served as an offensive coordinator at Louisville and University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB). He has coached in the Big Ten before, serving as quarterbacks coach at Illinois from 2010-11. Brohm has been the head coach at Western Kentucky since 2014 and was successful as he built the program, had a winning record, and went 2-0 in Bowl games. The 45-year-old Louisville native led Western Kentucky to back-to-back Conference USA Championships.

Brohm interviewed for Baylor’s coaching vacancy and would have been the top target for Cincinnati. Purdue fired Darrell Hazell Oct. 16 after he compiled a 9-33 record in three-plus seasons. The Boilermakers went 3-9 this season and finished last in the Big Ten West standings. WKU cheerleader Alex Elkins said, “I think he will be a good fit at Purdue.”

Brohm hit the jackpot with his deal with Purdue and his departure will have a lasting impact on Western Kentucky. “I think his departure will have a big effect on this team. The players really loved him and were really close with him,” said Elkins.

Western Kentucky is now on the coaching market looking for their next head coach. “I have no clue who the new coach will be and I have no clue who we should go after. Hopefully Les Miles (former head coach at LSU),” said Elkins. Also, the assistant coaches will be leaving the hill and joining Brohm at Purdue.

The Brohm family has changed the atmosphere and football program at Western Kentucky. “He changed a lot of things here at western. Before he got here our football team was not really good, and he turned the whole thing around. More people starting coming to games because we were winning all the time, and the atmosphere was awesome,” said Elkins.

“The students were really upset, just because we loved being apart of the Brohm squad, we loved watching our football team win. He was a big part of a lot of students lives for 3 years, and for him to leave before the bowl game took a toll on us,” said Elkins.

Western Kentucky will be playing in the Boca Raton Bowl on December 20 against Memphis. Nick Holt, Defensive Coordinator and current Interim Head Coach, will be leading the Hilltoppers in the bowl game as the search for the new Head Coach continues.