Purdue Coach Jeff Brohm Announces Addition of David Elson, Mel Mills to Football Staff

Purdue football has added David Elson and Mel Mills to the program's staff. Elson will serve in a quality control role while Mills was named director of player development.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm announced the additions of David Elson and Mel Mills to the program's staff. Elson will serve in a quality control role while Mills will be the team's director of player development. 

“I’m very pleased to have these two outstanding individuals join the staff,” Brohm said in a release. “They fit perfectly with our desire to bring in not only outstanding football minds, but people of high character, as well. I know they will work well with our student-athletes and staff.”

Elson joins the Boilermakers' staff after spending last season as the defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach of Marion University. Before his lone season at Marion, he served as the Ball State defensive coordinator for two seasons. 

Elson has served as the defensive coordinator at several programs, including Western Illinois, Southern Illinois, New Mexico State and Western Kentucky. He was a part of the Western Kentucky coaching staff between 1996 and 2009, where he had head coaching experience between 2003 and his final year. 

In 2002, Western Kentucky won the Football Championship Subdivision national championship and Elson was a finalist for the 2004 Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year Award as the Hilltoppers’ head coach.

Before joining the Purdue staff, Mills spent two seasons as the assistant head coach and academics coordinator at Kentucky Wesleyan College. He was responsible for several jobs, including coaching the defensive line, recruiting, monitoring the team’s academic progress and helping to oversee the conduct and image of the student-athletes.

Mills is a former college teammate of Brohm at Louisville. He spent five seasons as the defensive line coach at Franklin College between 2014 and 2018, the last three as defensive coordinator. 

Prior to that, Mills also gained experience as a head coach at Division III Becker College. He has worked on the staff of NFL Europe’s Cologne Centurions, and collegiately at Louisville, Oklahoma and as Florida Atlantic’s defensive line coach between 2000 and 2003.

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