1929 RESULTS (8-0, 5-0 BIG TEN - 1st)
Oct. 5	KANSAS STATE	W 26-14
Oct. 12	MICHIGAN	W 30-16
Oct. 19	DEPAUW	W 26-7
Oct. 26	at Chicago	W 26-0
Nov. 2	at Wisconsin	W 13-0
Nov. 9	MISSISSIPPI	W 27-7
Nov. 16	IOWA	W 7-0
Nov. 23	at Indiana	W 32-0

1929 SEASON IN REVIEW

An experienced team, led by three senior standouts - quarterback Glen Harmeson, tackle Elmer Sleight and halfback Ralph “Pest” Welch - with the addition of sophomores Charles Miller at center and Alex Yunevich at fullback, led to lofty expectations for the 1929 Boilermakers. They did not disappoint. The season would be defined in the fourth quarter of the second game, the first contest against Michigan since 1900. The visiting Wolverines led 16-6 after three quarters Oct. 12 before Purdue erupted for four touchdowns to win 30-16 before 25,000 fans. Yunevich scored three times while rushing for 127 yards on 21 carries in his first Big Ten Conference game. Harmeson, who had been shifted from quarterback to halfback, gained 126 yards rushing.

After allowing 30 points in its first two games, the Purdue defense stiffened and surrendered merely two touchdowns the rest of the season. The offense scored at least 26 points in five of the first six games, and the Boilermakers were unblemished at 6-0 when Iowa came to town as the Homecoming opponent for what the “Purdue Exponent” called “the most crucial game ever played by a Boilermaker football team” on a gloomy Nov. 16 afternoon. The Hawkeyes had knocked off previously unbeaten Minnesota 9-7 in their last game. Harmeson connected with end Bill Woerner on a 17-yard passing play in the second quarter for what proved to be the game’s only score, and Harmeson intercepted a pass by Oran Pape to thwart Iowa’s final possession. The 7-0 victory before 26,000 fans - the largest crowd ever assembled at Ross-Ade Stadium - guaranteed Purdue its first - and to this point only - outright conference championship.

Wrote Gordon Graham, sports editor of the “Lafayette Journal and Courier,” on Nov. 18: “It has been a long, hard climb, but after more than thirty years of waiting, a Purdue football team is finally perched on the Big Ten gridiron throne, lording it over nine other inferior elevens who for weeks have been fighting to attain the same exalted position now held by Jimmy Phelan’s courageous group of warriors.”

Now, Indiana was all that stood between Purdue and perfection, and the Boilermakers put an exclamation point on their season with a 32-0 victory in Bloomington. Fittingly, Harmeson passed to Welch for a 52-yard touchdown, Welch passed to Harmeson for a 55-yard score and Sleight recovered a Welch fumble in the end zone for the final touchdown. The Boilermakers finished 8-0 (5-0 Big Ten), and Sleight and Welch were named the first All-Americans in school history. They were consensus choices, being picked by the American Football Coaches Association, Associated Press, “Collier’s Weekly,” International News Service and Walter Camp Football Foundation.

Not only did the Boilermakers lose key senior players from their championship squad, they also lost Phelan, who left to become head coach at the University of Washington in the spring of 1930. Welch accompanied him as an assistant, and the Huskies went to the Rose Bowl in 1937. Phelan stayed at Washington through 1941 and was succeeded by Welch. Phelan went on to coach professionally and later served three terms as county commissioner of Sacramento County in California. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973.

For its next head coach, Purdue picked Noble Kizer, an assistant who trained the linemen under Phelan and a fellow Notre Dame alum. That’s where the similarities ended. According to Howard Kissell, a halfback who played for both men, Phelan was high strung and had a “crisp tongue,” while Kizer was more laid back and “never cursed his players.” Kizer, from Plymouth, Indiana, was an offensive guard for the Fighting Irish under coach Knute Rockne from 1922 to 1924 and a member of the 1924 national championship team that featured the fabled “Four Horsemen.”

From "Purdue University Football Vault: The History of the Boilermakers," written by Tom Schott and published in 2008.
 

ALL-TIME PURDUE BIG TEN FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS

1918-tri

1929

1931-tri

1932-co

1943-co

1952-co

1967-tri

2000-tri