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Tiller: Not Your Average Joe
When opportunity knocked, Joe Tiller busted the door down. Tiller became a major college head football coach somewhat late in his career. He was hired as the head coach at Wyoming just 12 days after his 48th birthday and became the head coach at Purdue two weeks before his 54th birthday. A disciple of the wide-open offenses used in the former Western Athletic Conference, Tiller’s Wyoming teams enjoyed great success in what he fondly refers to as the "Wacky WAC." After leaving the Cowboys for Purdue, some coaches insisted that his one-back, spread offense wouldn’t fly in the Big Ten Conference, with its physical, smash-mouth style of play. Instead, Tiller’s fast-breaking offense, now nicknamed "basketball on grass," took the Big Ten by storm. Before Tiller came aboard, Purdue had endured 12-consecutive losing seasons. But under Tiller, the Boilermakers have enjoyed arguably their most successful winning stretch ever. Tiller’s first eight teams went to bowl games, including the Rose Bowl. Before becoming a head coach, Tiller had served as an assistant at Montana State (his alma mater), Washington State, Purdue and Wyoming. He also spent nine years in Canada with Calgary of the CFL as an assistant coach, interim head coach, and in the front office—where he was responsible for booking rock star Alice Cooper and evangelist Billy Graham for appearances at McMahon Stadium, home of the Stampeders. In many ways, Tiller is a typical who has spent most of his life in the conservative Midwest and the open spaces of the western United States. A regular Joe, Tiller’s laid-back style, wry sense of humor and, of course, winning ways has made him a hit with Purdue players and fans alike.
- GenresSports
238 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2006
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June 6, 2025
From 1993 to 2008 as an elementary school kid all the up to my mid 20s I either read about, watched on TV, or saw in person (in 1996 I went to a San Diego State vs. Wyoming game) the teams of that the late 𝐉𝐨𝐞 𝐓𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 coached at the University of Wyoming (1993-1996) and then Purdue University (1997-2008).
For years I didn't even know that Tiller wrote an autobiography on his life, or it's just that I never bothered to check. 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 has been out since 2006 but I didn't purchase the book until May 2025, and I finished it almost a month ago. But as they say, better late than never.
𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 is the autobiography of the late Joe Tiller (1942-2017) and it should be read by the old school fans of both the Wyoming Cowboys and Purdue Boilermakers (especially the latter) football teams. I say old school fans of those two football programs because these new age fans have never seen and may never bother to see the eras of those two programs when Tiller was their head coach, so this book is not their (new age Cowboys and Boilermakers football fans) reading culture.
𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 is a chronological book on the origins of the former head coach starting with his childhood growing up on Collomore Road in Toledo, Ohio up until the 2005 season (the book was published in 2006). When you finish reading this book like I did, you will come away with more respect for what assistant and head coaches go through when it comes to the X's and O's (the game planning and strategic part of the job), moving your family across America when you get hired or fired from coaching jobs, dealing with your boss's personality quirks (head coaches), and more. I would even throw in another demographic that should read this book, aspiring head coaches or assistant coaches because it's a lot of info in this book just for them.
One of the elements of this book that I appreciated was that Tiller wrote about the ups and downs of his coaching career. Just because his version of the Spread offense was very successful at Wyoming and Purdue, that didn't mean that it was all 9 and 10-win seasons with January 1 bowl games every year. No, he went through his fair share of down seasons, graduation kicked the tail of some of his teams (including his 2001 Purdue team), and recruiting didn't always go his or his assistant coaches' way. But on the other hand, Tiller had a darn good head coaching career that was very rewarding for him. He helped put two forgotten programs on the map or into the consciousness of the college football world (fans, media, and etc.) in Wyoming and Purdue and he should be in the College Football Hall of Fame in my opinion for what he did at those two schools.
𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 had humor, and an example of that was on page 26. Back when he was in college as a student-athlete there was a time when he had to wear a cast on his right wrist because of a football injury he suffered in a football game. The cast kept him (as he explained thoroughly and sort of graphically) from wiping his backside when he went to the bathroom. I about fell out of my seat when he described that ordeal. Then on page 99 he said that after puffing on a cigar twelve times one day that he had had enough of them. No more cigars ever again for him.
𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 also was informative. A lot of college football fans back in the day (1990s and 2000s) didn't know that it was the Canadian Football League that introduced Tiller to the Spread offense (page 45) which of course was the offense that helped make him famous at Wyoming and Purdue. I also didn't know but I get it, and I would have gotten it back when he was coaching at Wyoming and it was that he admitted on page 70 that he didn't have much success recruiting southern California players to Wyoming when he was the head coach there. SoCal high school football players like to have fun, and they don't like cold weather, so living in Laramie Wyoming is not a fun option for them right out of high school or for the next 4 or 5 years of their lives.
One of if not the best quotes in the book was on page 90, and this quote summed up the head coaching career of Tiller at Wyoming and Purdue. "He's a guy who focuses on what he has instead of what he doesn't have." That quote was said by 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐞 who was the Athletic Director at Purdue when Tiller was there. Wyoming and Purdue never had the most talented rosters in the Western Athletic Conference and Big Ten respectively when Tiller coached at those schools. On the other hand, those teams he coached were well prepared, hard-working and blue collar, and they would try their best to outplay anyone they went up against.
Chapter 13 (Sunny El Paso) was a trip. Tiller prefaced that chapter with how tough it was to lose to graduation the best player he ever coached in quarterback 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬 (1997-2000). Brees in 1999 and 2000 took the Boilermakers to back-to-back January bowl games (including the Rose Bowl in 2000) which was big in college football back then, especially for a program like Purdue who throughout their history has never had the most talented, the most athletic, or the most four and five-star recruit laden rosters. It was a nice gesture from Tiller to let Brees know how much he missed him in 2001 and beyond.
One of my favorite chapters in this book was chapter 15 (Reality Check). In that chapter he laid it out there for his readers that the 2005 season at Purdue (the Boilermakers went 5-6 that year) was one of his hardest and one of the most disappointing seasons of his coaching career. You'll have to read the chapter to see what I mean.
A chapter that old school Boilermaker fans and even some new age ones may appreciate is chapter 16 (Terrific Trio-Dicken, Brees, Orton). In that chapter Tiller paid homage to three quarterbacks in 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐃𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐧, 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬, and 𝐊𝐲𝐥𝐞 𝐎𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 who through their play made opponents and the media respect Purdue football as well as bring the program into the national consciousness of college football. Those three quarterbacks made Tiller's life a whole lot easier at Purdue, and so it was appropriate for Tiller to add that a chapter to his autobiography which was a classy move in my opinion.
One of the more interesting chapters of this book was chapter 18 (Maxing Out). That chapter was cryptic, and I say that because two years after this book came out (2006) Tiller retired from coaching for good after the 2008 season. In that chapter he again talked about how tough the 2005 season was on him, that coaching wasn't as fun for him as it was around the time he first got there (he explains this on page 188 in chapter 18), and that maybe Purdue had maxed out their potential in 2005. Well, he ended up being wrong about that last part because the Boilermakers went 8-6 (2006, Champ Sports Bowl berth) and 8-5 (2007, Motor City Bowl win) in the seasons that followed the '05 season. But when he wrote that chapter (in late 2005 or early 2006) he felt strongly about the direction of the program.
One of the parts of the book that I didn't see coming was pages 203 to 209. In those six and a half pages Tiller's wife Arnette got her chance to speak. The life of a head coach's wife is something else and she laid it out there on those pages just how tough, rewarding, and patience-driven that life can be. Those 6.5 pages were one of the best parts of the book to me.
A good way to appreciate what Tiller, his offensive coaches, and his offensive players did for Purdue is to look at page 234 (the Appendix section) where the offensive success of the 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 (even that team) teams is laid out in living color.
Pros of 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓: Readers got a chance to learn about how Joe Tiller grew up, what made him become a coach, and how he felt about his career as a football coach (assistant and head coach) from 1965 to 2008. He threw in humor, the highs and lows of his career, and he included the seasons and players that helped make him what he was, which was a successful and well-known Spread offense disciple from 1991 to 2008.
Cons of 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓: It's easy to tell just from the cover art of the book that Joe Tiller wanted this book to be mainly about his humble beginnings in the football business (as a player and coach) and about his head coaching career at Purdue. The Wyoming period of his career was discussed in this book, but it wasn't given nearly the amount of ink that the Purdue part of his career was given. He coached some serious (receivers 𝐑𝐲𝐚𝐧 𝐘𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 and 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬) and solid (RB 𝐑𝐲𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧, QB 𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐡 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤, and RB 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐦) talent on offense at Wyoming from 1991-1996, but barely any offensive players from his head coaching career there were mentioned in this book.
In closing, 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 was a solid autobiography on a man who helped put two different college football programs on the map in terms of their visibility in the 1990s (Wyoming) and in the late 1990s and much of the 2000s (Purdue) with his version of the Spread offense. 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 is also about a man who never gave up on his pursuit of a head coaching job which is something that he began to pursue very hard in the 1980s. Aspiring football coaches and historical Purdue football fans are the main target demographics for this book, so think about that when you decide to buy this book.
For years I didn't even know that Tiller wrote an autobiography on his life, or it's just that I never bothered to check. 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 has been out since 2006 but I didn't purchase the book until May 2025, and I finished it almost a month ago. But as they say, better late than never.
𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 is the autobiography of the late Joe Tiller (1942-2017) and it should be read by the old school fans of both the Wyoming Cowboys and Purdue Boilermakers (especially the latter) football teams. I say old school fans of those two football programs because these new age fans have never seen and may never bother to see the eras of those two programs when Tiller was their head coach, so this book is not their (new age Cowboys and Boilermakers football fans) reading culture.
𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 is a chronological book on the origins of the former head coach starting with his childhood growing up on Collomore Road in Toledo, Ohio up until the 2005 season (the book was published in 2006). When you finish reading this book like I did, you will come away with more respect for what assistant and head coaches go through when it comes to the X's and O's (the game planning and strategic part of the job), moving your family across America when you get hired or fired from coaching jobs, dealing with your boss's personality quirks (head coaches), and more. I would even throw in another demographic that should read this book, aspiring head coaches or assistant coaches because it's a lot of info in this book just for them.
One of the elements of this book that I appreciated was that Tiller wrote about the ups and downs of his coaching career. Just because his version of the Spread offense was very successful at Wyoming and Purdue, that didn't mean that it was all 9 and 10-win seasons with January 1 bowl games every year. No, he went through his fair share of down seasons, graduation kicked the tail of some of his teams (including his 2001 Purdue team), and recruiting didn't always go his or his assistant coaches' way. But on the other hand, Tiller had a darn good head coaching career that was very rewarding for him. He helped put two forgotten programs on the map or into the consciousness of the college football world (fans, media, and etc.) in Wyoming and Purdue and he should be in the College Football Hall of Fame in my opinion for what he did at those two schools.
𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 had humor, and an example of that was on page 26. Back when he was in college as a student-athlete there was a time when he had to wear a cast on his right wrist because of a football injury he suffered in a football game. The cast kept him (as he explained thoroughly and sort of graphically) from wiping his backside when he went to the bathroom. I about fell out of my seat when he described that ordeal. Then on page 99 he said that after puffing on a cigar twelve times one day that he had had enough of them. No more cigars ever again for him.
𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 also was informative. A lot of college football fans back in the day (1990s and 2000s) didn't know that it was the Canadian Football League that introduced Tiller to the Spread offense (page 45) which of course was the offense that helped make him famous at Wyoming and Purdue. I also didn't know but I get it, and I would have gotten it back when he was coaching at Wyoming and it was that he admitted on page 70 that he didn't have much success recruiting southern California players to Wyoming when he was the head coach there. SoCal high school football players like to have fun, and they don't like cold weather, so living in Laramie Wyoming is not a fun option for them right out of high school or for the next 4 or 5 years of their lives.
One of if not the best quotes in the book was on page 90, and this quote summed up the head coaching career of Tiller at Wyoming and Purdue. "He's a guy who focuses on what he has instead of what he doesn't have." That quote was said by 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐞 who was the Athletic Director at Purdue when Tiller was there. Wyoming and Purdue never had the most talented rosters in the Western Athletic Conference and Big Ten respectively when Tiller coached at those schools. On the other hand, those teams he coached were well prepared, hard-working and blue collar, and they would try their best to outplay anyone they went up against.
Chapter 13 (Sunny El Paso) was a trip. Tiller prefaced that chapter with how tough it was to lose to graduation the best player he ever coached in quarterback 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬 (1997-2000). Brees in 1999 and 2000 took the Boilermakers to back-to-back January bowl games (including the Rose Bowl in 2000) which was big in college football back then, especially for a program like Purdue who throughout their history has never had the most talented, the most athletic, or the most four and five-star recruit laden rosters. It was a nice gesture from Tiller to let Brees know how much he missed him in 2001 and beyond.
One of my favorite chapters in this book was chapter 15 (Reality Check). In that chapter he laid it out there for his readers that the 2005 season at Purdue (the Boilermakers went 5-6 that year) was one of his hardest and one of the most disappointing seasons of his coaching career. You'll have to read the chapter to see what I mean.
A chapter that old school Boilermaker fans and even some new age ones may appreciate is chapter 16 (Terrific Trio-Dicken, Brees, Orton). In that chapter Tiller paid homage to three quarterbacks in 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐃𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐧, 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬, and 𝐊𝐲𝐥𝐞 𝐎𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 who through their play made opponents and the media respect Purdue football as well as bring the program into the national consciousness of college football. Those three quarterbacks made Tiller's life a whole lot easier at Purdue, and so it was appropriate for Tiller to add that a chapter to his autobiography which was a classy move in my opinion.
One of the more interesting chapters of this book was chapter 18 (Maxing Out). That chapter was cryptic, and I say that because two years after this book came out (2006) Tiller retired from coaching for good after the 2008 season. In that chapter he again talked about how tough the 2005 season was on him, that coaching wasn't as fun for him as it was around the time he first got there (he explains this on page 188 in chapter 18), and that maybe Purdue had maxed out their potential in 2005. Well, he ended up being wrong about that last part because the Boilermakers went 8-6 (2006, Champ Sports Bowl berth) and 8-5 (2007, Motor City Bowl win) in the seasons that followed the '05 season. But when he wrote that chapter (in late 2005 or early 2006) he felt strongly about the direction of the program.
One of the parts of the book that I didn't see coming was pages 203 to 209. In those six and a half pages Tiller's wife Arnette got her chance to speak. The life of a head coach's wife is something else and she laid it out there on those pages just how tough, rewarding, and patience-driven that life can be. Those 6.5 pages were one of the best parts of the book to me.
A good way to appreciate what Tiller, his offensive coaches, and his offensive players did for Purdue is to look at page 234 (the Appendix section) where the offensive success of the 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 (even that team) teams is laid out in living color.
Pros of 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓: Readers got a chance to learn about how Joe Tiller grew up, what made him become a coach, and how he felt about his career as a football coach (assistant and head coach) from 1965 to 2008. He threw in humor, the highs and lows of his career, and he included the seasons and players that helped make him what he was, which was a successful and well-known Spread offense disciple from 1991 to 2008.
Cons of 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓: It's easy to tell just from the cover art of the book that Joe Tiller wanted this book to be mainly about his humble beginnings in the football business (as a player and coach) and about his head coaching career at Purdue. The Wyoming period of his career was discussed in this book, but it wasn't given nearly the amount of ink that the Purdue part of his career was given. He coached some serious (receivers 𝐑𝐲𝐚𝐧 𝐘𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 and 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬) and solid (RB 𝐑𝐲𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧, QB 𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐡 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤, and RB 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐦) talent on offense at Wyoming from 1991-1996, but barely any offensive players from his head coaching career there were mentioned in this book.
In closing, 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 was a solid autobiography on a man who helped put two different college football programs on the map in terms of their visibility in the 1990s (Wyoming) and in the late 1990s and much of the 2000s (Purdue) with his version of the Spread offense. 𝑻𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 is also about a man who never gave up on his pursuit of a head coaching job which is something that he began to pursue very hard in the 1980s. Aspiring football coaches and historical Purdue football fans are the main target demographics for this book, so think about that when you decide to buy this book.
May 30, 2018
This has been sitting on my book case for awhile thought time to read it. As I die hard Boiler I enjoyed reading more about Coach and his background and love that he doesn’t hold back. Good read highly recommend to all Boiler fans. Boiler Up!
September 27, 2020
A Great Coach
I loved reading of his life ; although I went to a rival scholl, great respect for his teams. His sense of humor was admired ; a great football coach, he was.
I loved reading of his life ; although I went to a rival scholl, great respect for his teams. His sense of humor was admired ; a great football coach, he was.
April 19, 2009
This was a light and easy biographical read about the newly retired coach of Purdue Joe Tiller. It is a must for any Purdue football fan.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews