by Drew Brees
My play in the first three games had been okay, but I still hadn’t convinced anyone that I was the quarterback of the future. There were questions about whether I could lead the Boilermakers to a Big Ten championship and a Rose Bowl.
Notre Dame was a highly ranked team at the time, not to mention the fact that they ended up in a Bowl Championship Series game at the end of that season. They also had an unbelievable defense. When I was a kid, I would watch games like this on TV and dream about being in that moment. Now that moment was here.
It All Comes Down to Two Minutes
For the first fifty-eight minutes of the game, I played some of the best football I ever had. Unfortunately, a game is sixty minutes long. At halftime we were winning 24–14. I had completed seventeen of twenty-one passes for more than 200 yards and two touchdowns. We were rolling.
In the second half Notre Dame came back. We were up 30–28, and we had the ball in our territory. We basically needed only one first down to run out the clock. The Fighting Irish defense stuffed the first two run plays for no gain, and then we moved back five yards on a penalty. It was third and fifteen with about 1:50 on the clock. Jim Chaney, our offensive coordinator, called a pass play where I would roll out to the left and throw the ball to a receiver running a deep in route right into my vision. It’s not an easy pass—you have to time it well and stay balanced in order to deliver the ball accurately. But it was a play we’d run many times with success. If the pass was completed, we’d have a first down and the game would be over.
I rolled out, and wide receiver Randall Lane broke across the field in front of me as expected. The coverage was good, but I saw a window to complete the pass. As the ball left my hand, I could feel it come out a little high as I was attempting to elevate it over the head of a defender. Randall jumped for it, but the ball glanced off his fingertips and landed right in free safety Tony Driver’s hands. He ran the interception back to the five yard line. Our defense held, but the Irish kicked a field goal and took the lead, 31–30.
I was in shock. Because of my mistake, we had gone from being one play away from victory to being behind. Even if I hadn’t completed the pass, we would have punted, and our defense would have had a chance for a stop. Now we were losing. And it was my fault.
The game wasn’t over yet, though. We had less than a minute to get into field goal range, and our offense had been clicking the whole game. We still had a chance. We threw a pass on first down, but it fell incomplete. Then lightning struck again. On second down, I threw the ball a little high, and it bounced off my receiver’s fingertips. Another interception. Game over.
I knelt down on the field, unable to believe what had just happened. I had thrown two interceptions in the last two minutes, erasing the good play of the whole game. I headed into the locker room, still stunned, and sat at my locker. I looked around at the seniors and watched as tears ran from their eyes. We had worked so hard, and now here I was, the sophomore quarterback in his fourth start who had just lost the game for everybody. The first win on Notre Dame territory in twenty-five years had been in our grasp, and I had let everyone down. I felt awful.
I started wondering whether I was fit to play at Purdue. Do I belong here? Can I compete at this level? Fortunately I had friends who knew what I needed. That night I went out to eat with my two roommates, Ben Smith and Jason Loerzel. Jason was from Park Ridge, Illinois, and played linebacker. Ben was a quarterback from Nebraska who switched to free safety when he came to Purdue. We all came in during the same year and formed a bond, a brotherhood. We were from very different backgrounds and different parts of the country, but we were like glue.
Jason and Ben insisted we go to C Ray’s, a local restaurant with the best chicken wings in town. “You’re pretty miserable to be around right now,” they said. “Let’s order up some C Ray’s wings, and we’ll relax and let you vent.”
That’s what we did. Even though I was down, the wings were good. Still, I had trouble letting go of those last two minutes. I knew I was the reason we had lost. It’s one thing to start well, but you have to finish—you have to follow through. You have to be able to win the big one and deliver when the game is on the line. But as we talked through the feelings, I realized that for fifty-eight minutes in the biggest game of my life, I’d played some of my best football. There was so much pressure to perform in that game. I hadn’t finished well, but for fifty-eight minutes I’d showed I belonged on that field. That gave me confidence. The glass was half full. Find the positive out of every negative. That is what I always tried to do.
Jason and Ben helped get me out of my funk and focus on the next game, which was Minnesota at home. It was a misty day—foggy to the point where you almost couldn’t see the field from the press box. For home games the team stayed at the hotel in the Union. We’d get up in the morning and walk about a half mile to the stadium as a team. To everybody else that day may have seemed dreary, but for me it felt like there was energy in the air. It felt like a fresh start, and the mist was bringing in a brand-new opportunity. I was going to show people what I had inside. I wasn’t going to let the last two minutes of the Notre Dame game wreck my future.
That dinner at C Ray’s was a proverbial fork in the road for me. I realized I could focus on my mistakes and feel sorry for myself, or I could learn from those mistakes and use them as motivation to come back stronger. Under pressure, would I fold and disappear, or would I show everyone that when bad things happen, you fight? I wanted to prove to my team that they could count on me and that I was the guy who could lead them.
In the game against Minnesota, I went thirty-one for thirty-six, with 522 yards and six touchdowns, until Coach Tiller pulled me after the third quarter. We were winning the game 56–14 at the time, and he wanted to get the young guys some action. All those stats were school records, and we could have gone for the NCAA record books if we’d wanted to, but running up the score is not how you play the game. In reality, the outcome of the Notre Dame game wasn’t those two interceptions and the loss. It was the way it motivated me to play the next week—and helped me to turn a corner in my college career.
We went 9–4 that season and beat fourth-ranked Kansas State 37–34 in the Alamo Bowl. But we still hadn’t made it to the Rose Bowl. That had been my ultimate goal as an incoming freshman. I knew the road to get there would not be easy, but anything worth fighting for never is.
Fixing What You Break
Two years later, I was a senior, and we were playing Ohio State. We’d had a frustrating year in 1999, going 7–5 and making it to the Outback Bowl but losing to a talented Georgia team in overtime. Now it was a new season, a new millennium, and there were great hopes that this was going to be our year.
We started out with a disappointing 3–2 record. We had two heartbreaking road losses to Penn State and Notre Dame—both by just two points. The next game was in West Lafayette against Michigan, who was ranked sixth. Then we had to go on the road against Wisconsin and Northwestern, both ranked in the top twenty. After that we’d play at home against Ohio State, another top ten team. And we hadn’t beaten Michigan and Ohio State in forever, it seemed. Looking at this schedule could have been overwhelming, but that’s why the philosophy always needs to be one game at a time. Never look too far ahead, or you will end up tripping over something right in front of you. We could do this. We had to do this. We had no other choice if we wanted to be called champions.
The first victim was Michigan, and it was a wild game—we won with a last-second field goal, 32–31. We then went to Northwestern and won. Next we traveled to Wisconsin and won in overtime. The team was rolling, and we were ready for the showdown: Ohio State at Purdue. We were ranked sixteen, they were twelve, and everybody was saying, “This game is for the Rose Bowl.” Whoever won that game had to win only one more game to clinch the Big Ten title.
It was a late October night—a great night for football. The Purdue fans were into the game, and everyone was pumped to beat Ohio State. But we didn
’t start well. Going into the fourth quarter, we were losing 20–10, and I had thrown three interceptions. This was not what I’d envisioned for this game. We had moved the ball well offensively; we just kept turning it over at the worst times. But in spite of all that, in the fourth quarter we were down only two scores.
We started the fourth quarter with the ball and drove down the field. I threw a touchdown pass to wide receiver John Standeford: 20–17, Ohio State. We got the ball back, and I threw another touchdown pass, this time to wide receiver Vinny Sutherland. Now we were winning 24–20 with about six minutes left in the game. The fans were going wild. The defense stepped up, and we got the ball back with a chance to run out the clock.
We ran a few plays and watched the clock. It could not tick down fast enough. The number one priority in this situation was to take care of the football. Whatever we did, we couldn’t give them a short field or any momentum with a turnover. The next play I dropped back to pass and was immediately flushed out of the pocket by a blitzing linebacker running free up the middle. I scrambled to my right and thought, Be smart. Throw the ball away. As I pulled the ball back to throw it away, my foot slipped and the ball fluttered in the air toward the sideline. It didn’t go out-of-bounds like I’d intended—it sailed. I watched in horror as the strong safety, Mike Doss, intercepted it and ran it down the sideline. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Practically on autopilot, I chased him down and knocked him out-of-bounds at the two yard line. In the process, I almost knocked myself out.
Dazed, I tried to get up onto one knee. What did I just do?
Ohio State celebrated around me, and our defense came out. I headed back to the sideline and watched as, a couple of plays later, the Buckeyes scored a touchdown to go up 27–24 with a little over two minutes left in the game. Some players tapped me and said, “It’s okay,” or “Go win the game for us.” But other than that people pretty much left me alone.
As I did between most drives in the game, I got on the phone with my quarterbacks coach, Greg Olson, who was positioned up in the press box. “Shake it off. Focus on the next series. You are going to win this game for us—you watch.”
It was eerie how similar this felt to that Notre Dame game two years earlier, but I had learned from that experience. Finally defensive end Warren “Ike” Moore came up to me. He was a senior, too, and a guy who really didn’t get a lot of playing time. But he was a well-respected, quiet leader on the team. He put his arm around me and said something I’ll never forget.
“You broke it. Now go out and fix it.”
For some reason that made sense. It had been my mistake, but I had time to make up for that mistake. Instead of kicking myself or replaying the interception, I focused on the task at hand. One thing you learn quickly is that great quarterbacks must have short-term memories when it comes to things like this. Good or bad, you have to be able to finish a play, push it aside, and move on to the next one. You can never let a play from the past affect the present. Your job is to play in the moment.
Ohio State kicked off, and I went out onto the field. I was feeling the pressure, but it was that pressure that gave me an edge. I was focused and determined and maintained the philosophy of one play at a time. Trust yourself. Trust your teammates. Trust the progression. I threw the first pass, but it was batted down by the defense. Okay, shake it off. Second and ten. Our offensive coordinator, Jim Chaney, then called a routine play—one of my favorites. In this play there are four receivers to throw the ball to. Ninety percent of the time the ball goes to the first or second receiver. The third receiver gets the ball about 10 percent of the time. And then there’s the guy on the outside who runs a post route to clear out the defense. He never gets the ball, except maybe one play in a thousand.
I dropped back and went through my progression. This drill was ingrained in me. You practice it; you visualize it; you go through each receiver methodically and decide yes or no. If any receiver in the progression is open, you pull the trigger. I read the first receiver on a hitch to my left, and he was covered. The second receiver, running a seam route down the left numbers, was covered too. Next I looked at the seam route running right down the middle of the field, and the defense was all over him. All three were a no go.
Then I scanned for the fourth option—the one I never threw to. He was open—and I mean wide open! In a split second, my mind said, Turn it loose. The ball came out of my hand, and Seth Morales caught it for a sixty-four-yard touchdown. We won the game 31–27.
Overcome with emotion, I went down on one knee. “Thank you, Lord.” My offensive linemen came over and picked me up.
The left tackle, Matt Light, who now has a great career with the New England Patriots, including three Super Bowl rings, was one of the first ones there. He grabbed me under my shoulder pads and lifted me off the ground while screaming in my face, “That is what makes you great! That is what makes you great!” What a moment. I loved my offensive line. Most of them were seniors, and we had set out on this journey together. That’s what made the experience so special—being able to share it with people like them.
After four years of hard work, we finally had a chance to win the Big Ten championship and go to the Rose Bowl. We could have given up when Ohio State scored the touchdown. I could have beaten myself up over the mistake. But I was given the opportunity to make it right, to fix it.
We fixed it together.
Not long ago I talked with Coach Jim Tressel, who has coached Ohio State since 2001. He said, “I’ll never forget what you did to Ohio State in that game in 2000. In fact, I might not have this job if it weren’t for that play.” John Cooper was the head coach at Ohio State that year, and he was let go after that season.
“I guess everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it, Coach?” I said.
Chapter Three
Girl Meets Idiot Quarterback
In high school and in college, I was the kind of guy who was friends with everybody. I dated a lot of girls, but I never found anyone I wanted to be serious with. My longest relationship up to that point had probably lasted no more than a couple of months. School and athletics consumed me. When I got to Purdue, I was even more lasered in on football and academics. I was an industrial management major with a manufacturing minor. Everyone knows Purdue is one of the top ten engineering schools in the country, but most people don’t realize that the Krannert School of Management at Purdue is in the top ten among business schools at public universities. My course work upheld Purdue’s reputation as the Ivy League of the Midwest.
I started off the first semester of my freshman year with a 3.5 GPA, but that fell off significantly in the spring with a 2.6 GPA, due in large part to my pledgeship responsibilities with Sigma Chi fraternity. But no excuses. I needed to suck it up. I continued on a pretty good pace with my classes until the spring of my sophomore year, when I made a D in one of the most important management courses. This put my GPA right around a 3.2, which wasn’t all bad, except that in order to be considered for Academic All-American, you have to have at least a 3.25 GPA. That was one of my goals, and I was not about to let Management 201 get the best of me.
I very easily could have moved on to the next prerequisite courses for my major, but the D did not sit well with me. That was the first and only D I’d ever made in my life. When summer school rolled around, I enrolled in the course again. It was time to seek my redemption. I needed a B to hit the 3.25 mark for Academic All-American, and when it came time for the final, I was right on the bubble. I had to get a B on the test—there was no other option. I studied and prepared as much as I could, and after the two-hour exam, I had to wait a full day for the results. I was chomping at the bit, but when the score came back, I had aced the final with a 100 percent. My final grade for the course was an A. I was able to keep up the Academic All-American title throughout my time at Purdue.
With all that was on my mind with academics and football, I didn’t let myself dream of getting married and settling down yet. I was too
focused on everything else. But I’ll tell you the truth: the minute I saw Brittany, I told myself, I’m going to marry that woman. Of course, she didn’t feel that way about me, because I made a fool of myself the first time I met her.
It was January 15, 1999, my twentieth birthday. I was with a bunch of players who lived at an apartment complex near school, and we were feeling pretty invincible that night, having partaken of a few adult beverages to celebrate my birthday. I’m not proud of it, but that’s what we sometimes did on a night out with the fellas. I remember seeing Brittany from twenty feet away, walking across the parking lot toward the apartment. She was with a friend of hers who knew one of the guys on our team. I just stared at her and wondered, Who is that? She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And look at the way she carries herself. It’s hard to describe the feeling that came over me at that moment. My legs became weak, my mind halted, and my heart just melted. I knew right then that I wanted to marry her.
At one point during the evening I got up enough nerve to talk with her. I was acting stupid because of the alcohol, throwing out every cheesy pickup line in the book. It’s humiliating to even recall it. I remember Brittany looking at me and just shaking her head before she simply walked away.
I found out later that when I left, she was thinking, Who is this young idiot who’s so full of himself? Somebody told her I was the quarterback of the football team, to which she responded, “Then who is this young idiot football player who’s so full of himself?” Turns out my cheesy pickup lines had sent her running, and the fact that I played football pretty much solidified I would never get a shot again. Football players don’t have the greatest reputation for being good boyfriends, and she wanted nothing to do with me.
