Normally, teams don’t play conference games in the first week of the season, but that’s exactly what Purdue and Northwestern will do this fall in West Lafayette.

On Wednesday, Purdue coach Jeff Brohm joined ESPNU Radio on SiriusXM and explained why he actually sees the Week 1 Big Ten matchup as a good thing.

As you can hear in the segment below, Brohm says he believes the Boilermakers will prepare with more urgency this summer with such a big game in Week 1:

“I probably am a little different than the other coaches,” he said. “For me, I’m excited about it. One thing about playing a very tough opponent in the first game, it does cause you to work that much harder in the summer and the offseason to get ready. The last thing you want to do is come out and embarrass yourself. For us, to play Northwestern — a team that won its last five games, won their bowl game, beat us pretty daggone good at their place pretty handily and gave us a pretty good whoopin’ — it’s going to be a challenge for us.

“But I do think it’s going to help us prepare harder, prepare more. It is a big game. It’s a Thursday night game. I anticipate it being on TV and I think it’s a huge matchup that can set the tone for the rest of the year.”

Last year, the Wildcats took down the Boilermakers 23-13 in Evanston, but Brohm and his squad hope to flip the script this time around.