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Carmel's Ojata excited to make jump from D3 to Big Ten

On3 imageby: Tom Dienhart01/03/24TomDienhart1
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Ojata Purdue

Purdue has a growing collection of players from Carmel (Ind.) High School. There’s OLB Will Heldt, NT Cole Brevard, S Winston Berglund and OL Ethan Trent. Now, there’s another: OLB Jireh Ojata.

“I’m super excited,” said Ojata. “I used to work out with Will a couple years ago. I played with Cole all four years at Carmel. He’s a great guy. I love Will’s work ethic and the way he attacks everything. …

“It’s gonna be really fun to reconnect with those guys.”

He’ll soon get the chance, as Ojata committed to the Boilermakers from the transfer portal on December 28. He will enroll this month.

It was a quick courtship between Purdue and Ojata, who will be making a big leap from Division III Franklin College to the Big Ten. But, the Boilermakers staff last year showed it was not adverse to taking transfers from D3 schools, bringing in OLs Ben Farrell (Indiana Wesleyan) and Bakyne Coly (Lawrence Tech).

“I kind of had my eyes set on them before going into the portal (doing so on December 27),” said Ojata. “I was looking to kind of stay close to home and to play at a bigger school with my last year of eligibility, and I got in the transfer portal and we got connected … “

Ojata is the third OLB to commit to Purdue from the portal in this cycle, joining Shitta Sillah of Boston College and C.J. Madden of Georgia. They will try to help replace Nic Scourton, who surprisingly entered the portal in late December.

The 6-4, 260-pound Ojata’s path to Purdue has been unconventional. He didn’t start playing football at Carmel until his freshman season. And he admits that he didn’t start to take football seriously until his junior year.

“It took me a while to find a position that suited me because I started off my freshman year as a wide receiver,” said Ojata. “I switched over to the defensive side of ball and started playing DB. And then I was playing linebacker my junior year, and then played defensive end for the first time my senior year of high school.

“So, I didn’t really have a lot of experience. I didn’t start, so I didn’t have really any tape. I went to Franklin off my practice tape and what they thought they saw in me.”

Ojata made the most of his time at Franklin College. He was a three-time first-team all-Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference selection and the 2023 HCAC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior when he led the conference in tackles for loss and was second in the HCAC in sacks.

Now, Ojata will try to show he belongs with the big boys.

“I’m very excited,” he said. “It’s a chance for me to show my skill set and my abilities on a bigger stage. I feel like a lot of times, there’s some things that you do as a defensive player that get overlooked. So, being able to do it at the Big Ten level is really going to help my case a lot.”

Ojata is still developing. In 36 career games at Franklin, he notched 160 tackles, 32 sacks and 48.5 TFLs with four blocked kicks. Now, he’s looking to flash in Power Five.

“I feel like I’m really good at containing the run, keeping the edge,” said Ojata. “Also getting to the quarterback. I’m very effective on third downs, being able to get pressure on the quarterback.

“I feel like I’m one of the defensive ends or outside linebackers that when we get our hands on the quarterback, we make him feel it. Either the ball is coming out or they’re really going to feel that hit for for a long time.”

MORE: Purdue transfer portal tracker | 2024 scholarship distribution chart

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