Joe Tiller, the former head coach at Purdue and Wyoming, passed away on Saturday. Let’s look back at the legacy Tiller left on college football.
After battling through health issues over the course of the summer, Joe Tiller finally lost the fight. The 74-year-old passed away in Buffalo, Wyoming on Saturday. Tiller spent 18 seasons as a head coach at Wyoming and Purdue, ending his career as the winningest coach in Boilermakers history.
He was one of the offensive innovators of the modern era, leading high-powered attacks in both Laramie and West Lafayette. Though Tiller is no longer with us, his legacy will linger long after his passing. Let’s look back at a life well lived.
From humble origins
Tiller was born in Toledo, Ohio on Dec. 7, 1942, exactly one year to the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Instead of staying in the Midwest after high school, Tiller decided to move away to go to college. He headed west in 1960 to play football for Montana State. Tiller was a standout offensive tackle for the Bobcats. As a senior, he played in the 1963 East-West Shrine Game and earned All-American honorable mention accolades.
After trying his hand at professional football in the Canadian Football League, Tiller returned to Bozeman in 1965. After one season as a graduate assistant, he was promoted to a full-time position directly under head coach Jim Sweeney. Tiller remained at his alma mater for six seasons before teaming up again with Sweeney at Washington State in 1971.
In three seasons in Pullman, Tiller variously coached the defensive and offensive lines. He then decided to try his hand at coaching in the professional ranks. In 1974, Tiller crossed the border and started the first of his nine seasons with the same Calgary Stampeders team that gave him his opportunity to play pro ball out of college. He got his first taste of leading a program in Calgary, taking over as the interim coach of the Stampeders in 1976 after Bob Baker was fired midway through a 2-12-2 season.
Coming back to campus
The call of the college game pulled Tiller back to the United States in 1983, when he returned to the Midwest as Purdue’s defensive coordinator and assistant head coach. Tiller, though, was always an offensive guy at heart. When Paul Roach invited him to take over as the offensive coordinator at Wyoming in 1987, Tiller jumped at the opportunity to return back to the Rockies.
Working with Roach, Tiller built one of the most high-powered offenses in the country in Laramie. During Tiller’s two seasons as the coordinator, Wyoming won back-to-back Western Athletic Conference titles and went 21-5. The success led Washington State to come calling, and Tiller returned to Pullman for two more years as the Cougars offensive coordinator.
After Roach decided to step down from coaching duties in Laramie and focus on his role as athletic director, there was no question about who he wanted to succeed him on the sideline. Tiller came back to Wyoming in 1991 and turned the Cowboys into a WAC powerhouse.
Wyoming struggled in his first two seasons at the helm, but it was only a matter of time before they started winning. Tiller’s tenure in Laramie was marked by his ability to develop unheralded quarterbacks and skill players into offensive dynamos. The Cowboys succeed through the air and on the ground. Within three years of his takeover, Wyoming won the WAC outright in 1993 to earn a trip to the Copper Bowl.
We now live in an era with a glutted postseason calendar. It is important to remember that getting to a bowl game was hardly as easy in the early 1990s as it is today. That trip to Tucson proved to be the only time Tiller took Wyoming to a bowl. That doesn’t mean that he was unsuccessful but merely unlucky.
His best coaching performance came in 1996, as he led the Cowboys to a 10-2 record and coached Biletnikoff Award-winning receiver Marcus Harris. Wyoming finished in the AP Top 25 for the first time since 1967. It was not enough to earn a postseason bid. The Cowboys lost to BYU in the inaugural edition of the short-lived WAC championship game. As a result, no bowls came calling for the Cowboys after the defeat.
Returning to the Midwest
While bowl officials paid little attention to Wyoming’s success, other programs around the country certainly took note. Purdue, where Tiller had spent four years as a coordinator, took its chances and hired away the coach to lead its program.
It proved an astute move, as Tiller immediately led the Boilermakers to prominence. In just his second game as Purdue’s head coach, Tiller led the team to its first win over Notre Dame since 1985. The Boilermakers finished 9-3 that season, capping the year with a 33-20 victory over Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl.
The initial success augured big things for the Boilermakers. Prior to his return to West Lafayette, Purdue had suffered through a dozen straight losing seasons. During his time as the head of the Boilermakers, Tiller guided the program to nine winning seasons in 12 years. They also went 6-6 in 2001.
Within three years, Purdue had climbed to a share of the 2000 Big Ten title. Riding the arm of standout quarterback Drew Brees, the Boilermakers ushered in the new millennium with its first trip to the Rose Bowl in 34 years.
Purdue never returned to Pasadena after losing 34-24 to Washington. Even then, Tiller continued to enjoy outsized success at the program. In his swan-song season of 2008, Tiller passed legendary Boilermakers coach Jack Mollenkopf as the winningest coach in school history. It happened with a 32-25 takedown of Central Michigan in September. It proved the high point of the season, as Purdue won only two more games that year. Tiller ended his storied career on a low note as Purdue finished 4-8.
Tiller’s lasting legacy
Tiller was among a group of coaches who helped modernize offenses in the college game. Like his former WAC counterpart LaVell Edwards, Tiller loved to stretch out the field with the pass. As a former offensive lineman and longtime coach on the other side of the ball, Tiller had a preternatural feel for designing schemes that protected his quarterbacks and allowed them to thrive.
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Tiller never did create much of a coaching tree. His only former assistant currently coaching in the FBS ranks is Kevin Sumlin, the head coach at Texas A&M. But his concepts continue to be employed to this day, as he was in constant communication with other leaders around the country both during and after his career.
On Saturday, Tiller left this temporal realm. But his four-decade legacy in football will live on. While it is sad to see him go, Tiller provided an example to follow as one of the great individuals of modern football history.