BOILING OVER: Purdue-Iowa football recruiting visitors, looking ahead to hoops spring recruiting and more
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Welcome to “BOILING OVER,” GoldandBlack.com’s weekly information clearinghouse, a spot for assorted bits of news, analysis and so on and so forth, intended for GoldandBlack.com members and GoldandBlack.com members only.
PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Big visit weekend for Purdue for the Iowa game.
One of the big names is 2025 Ohio QB Tavien St. Clair, who already holds high-end SEC offers among others.
https://www.on3.com/db/tavien-st.-clair-154703
Avon ’24 offensive lineman Zach Bandy is coming back for at least the second time this season. He may be really close to a Purdue offer, and wouldn’t be surprising if he landed one this weekend.
https://www.on3.com/db/zach-bandy-155077/
Defensive back Taebron Bennie-Powell, another 2024, has Kentucky, Pitt and West Virginia offers already, and Purdue will also host Michigan linebacker Brady Pretzlaff, who Illinois has already offered.
https://www.on3.com/db/taebron-bennie-powell-151969/
https://www.on3.com/db/brady-pretzlaff-154289/recruiting/
A notable 2025 in-state visitor: Warren Central’s Damien Shanklin, a D-end.
https://www.on3.com/db/damien-shanklin-162592/recruiting/
There will be a bunch of commits on campus, as well, of course, including out-of-staters Terrell Washington Jr. and Ethan Fields.
We’ll touch base with a bunch of these guys on Sunday. Promise. (BN)
PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING
With recruiting sort of quiet as the season starts off — JT Rock‘s official visit for the Marquette game is the next thing — we’ll take this opportunity to get way ahead of ourselves as we tend to do and look ahead to the spring.
[MEDIA=youtube]lcVIZ0khWzw[/MEDIA]
On an unrelated note, our educated guess is that Camden Heide will redshirt this season along with Will Berg. We don’t know that for fact yet about Heide, but the amount of time he’s missed the past year-plus is almost always mentioned in reference to him, and that can be taken as a hint at what coaches might be thinking. That said, conversations will take place sometime soon and nothing is determined yet beyond Berg, who was gonna redshirt anyway.
Should this unfold, that’ll put Purdue’s freshman class next season at three, with Myles Colvin and the two presumed redshirt freshman.
At the moment, barring anything unforeseen, and there’s more unforeseen that can happen than ever before these days, Purdue will have one open scholarship this spring, at which time spring recruiting and the portal could come to the forefront. If it’s just the one, though, you’d have to think Purdue will try to use it.
Purdue could really use another point guard, even though Braden Smith is gonna be their long-term. The difference between this past summer in the portal and next summer in the portal would almost certainly be that Purdue wouldn’t go gunning for the best of the best at the position necessarily because they don’t need to recruit a starter. Recruiting a good, solid piece would suffice. Please keep that concept in mind, because it will legitimately guide this.
Center could come into play, too, depending on Zach Edey. The presumption is that whether he’s a draft pick or not, his time to move on would be this spring, but you never know anymore. Purdue’s not going to pay dudes to come back to school the way others are, but Purdue does have an existing NIL structure now for all its players and Edey has been able to do some stuff in Canada, so he’s doing OK in that regard and that could give him reason to stay if his draft stock isn’t at a place where it would be worth the jump. We’ll see. Again, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves.
Caleb Furst and Trey Kaufman-Renn should both be back in the frontcourt after this season — we’re always gonna use the word “should” anymore — and Will Berg will come out of redshirt. Purdue seems to be satisfied with Berg’s progress and believes he’s a keeper, but whether he’s a guy who can step right in next season should Edey leave, that remains to be seen. So Purdue could conceivably look for a big, as well, based on the outcomes of some of these moving parts.
Speaking of moving parts, whether Purdue can or would recruit a multi-year anything is probably gonna be guided by the conversations Purdue needs to have ASAP after the season with Ethan Morton, Brandon Newman and Mason Gillis, because they’re the last of COVID-year-eligible players. We’d still call Morton the most likely of those three to take the freebie year, but we’ll see. Because of all this stuff, scholarship charts aren’t worth the cocktail napkins written on right now. Edey’s situation and the COVID year candidates plus the transfer portal making planning in recruiting a total debacle anymore. (BN)
PURDUE FOOTBALL
Couple PFF notes on Iowa …
• Iowa’s pass-blocking has been atrocious this season, especially by typical Kirk Ferentz standards. In the most incredible note we can think, Iowa grades No. 130 out of 131 in pass-blocking, sandwiched between two academies.
This is Iowa we’re talking about here.
Spencer Petras has been sacked 21 times and pressures on almost a quarter of his drop-backs. Under pressure, Petras has completed only 35 percent of his passes and thrown four picks.
His chart …
Clean: 93-146, 894 yrds, 3 TD, INT
Pressure: 21-60, 307, 4 INT
No Blitz: 79-137, 721, 3 TD, 5 INT
Blitz: 35-65, 480
Iowa has dropped 12 of his passes, which hasn’t helped.
Meanwhile, a couple Iowa staples have been futile. They’re averaging just 1.4 yards per attempt on screens and 7.5 per attempt on playaction, with just one TD.
Iowa’s dropped eight passes and thrown three picks on passes between 10-19 yards.
• Iowa is No. 2 nationally on defense according to PFF’s grading structure and No. 1 nationally in pass coverage, the part of the game Purdue’s had figured out in the past, but will need to again this time around.
• Edge rusher Lukas Van Ness has accounted for 30 QB pressures and 20 hurries.
PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Stay tuned tomorrow night for coverage from Cathedral’s playoff game against Lawrence Central. Purdue commits Kendrick Gilbert and Jaron Tibbs and 2024 QB target Danny O’Neil.
SITE NOTE
Stay tuned tonight for Alan and Tom appearing at the Union Club Hotel to squawk about Purdue-Iowa for an hour or so.
