OK- I've been told that Purdue, under Tiller, is a developmental program...We don't get blue chips and generally, players need a season or two before they are developed enough to play a serious role in the system. That said, hasn't this coaching staff done just the opposite of developing many players? Here's what I mean:
Curtis Painter was a mobile QB with a rocket arm out of high school who was marginally accurate and struggled early in games. Now, Curtis is an immobile QB with a rocket arm who still struggles with sailing the ball, especially if he's pressured.
Ryan Baker and Alex Magee both played right out of the box. Both were thought to be a little bit light early in their careers, but once they had weight on them, they would be able to see their full potential. Both players are big, solid Senior linemen now...neither seems to have reached their potential.
Fabian Martin came to Purdue the same year Dorien Bryant came in. Fabian was thought of as a player with a ton of potential since he was mainly a track star out of high school with little experience. Now as a Senior, he only plays special teams...and the way he over-persues, honestly looks like he hasn't been coached on how to use his speed...yet.
Dorien Bryant, John Standeford and Taylor Stubblefield all had great careers as Boilermakers. All put up huge numbers...and all seemed to have lost weight during their careers in West Lafayette. We all said it, at least once, "wait until these guys get a little weight/strength on them...then they'll be able to beat press coverage..." Never happened.
Royce Adams was forced into duty early in his career. He got picked on quite a bit too because he was so green...but we all saw great potential. Royce is now a Nickel Back and is barely in the two-deeps as a Junior.
Jerry Wasikowski played quite extensively as a tight end early in his career...both in passing downs and running downs, due to different injuries ahead of him. Now he is nearly-solely a blocking TE.
Eric Hedstrom and Garrett Miller were both solid recruits coming out of HS (Hedstrom being a bit more highly-touted). They both had good frames and seemed to be ripe for bulking up and becoming big time BT o-linemen. Years later, neither has been able to put on serious weight and despite being 6'6" & 6'8", neither is over 300 pounds and their lack of weight has been an issue versus bigger defensive fronts.
David Pender and Brandon King both come from the speedy South and were highly-rated (3-star) athletes exiting high school. Many thought that the two corners with good speed, height and builds would prove to be formidible as the '08 season began. Well, v. UND we saw a lousy quarterback throw up rainbows and telegraphed passes and neither seemed to be able to find the ball effectively...And UND's very young receivers looked like upperclassmen for the entire second half.
Frank Halliburton was talked about as the first true fullback recruit under Tiller. Frank started out early in his career as a special teams starter. After bulking up for a year, we heard that the fullback would be used more-regularly in '07. Coming into '08, we heard both he and Jared Crank would be used in short-yardage situations. Now we hear from Tiller that he's a halfback in a fullback's body...if only a coach would work with him on his ability to be a north-south runner with his shoulder pads low to the ground.
There are plenty more examples, these are just those off of the top of my head...
For those of you who have been around Purdue sports for a while, this is classic Mel McCants or Mike Robinson syndrome (to make a cross-sport comparison).
Keep in mind, I'm not pinning this on the players. It's not their job to create the schemes to play in, drills to help them work on technique or design the weight program in which they participate. It's their job to execute as they are told. I think they're doing just that.
Granted, there are the Dustin Kellers, Anthony Spencers and Craig Terrills of the Tiller era; but those seem to be less-frequent and harder to find.
5 comments:
I have to disagree with your post. Sure there have been lots of "misses" on recruits in the JT years, but I'm sure every program misses on at least half their recruiting class. The difference is, when you get such poor recruiting classes, you tend to miss quicker and more often than on all 4 and 5 stars. I think the great amount of Purdue players in the NFL shows that something has been working in the last 10 years. Purdue has 2 starting QB's (name another school with more without counting Griese as a starter?), 2 all pro linemen, several solid LB's/DE's, and Pollard and Reeves. That's not half bad in my book. The bigger question I have is how there have been 0 quality Purdue WR's in the NFL. This is a huge recruiting problem if you ask me.
I think an even better concern is what is wrong with Purdue fans. I watched several games on TV this weekend (including ND) that were sold out with much larger stadiums, louder fans, better traditions (Shout, c'mon that is just pathetic), etc. I'm sure so many Boilers have jumped so far off this season's bandwagon they won't recover from their injuries for several years. I think if the fan base will show unconditional support and some sort of home field advantage, they might eek out a couple more wins a season and get several more big time recruits.
Here's my solution. Put me in charge of the Purdue game day experience. I'll have asses in seats so fast that they'll get strawberries. I can also guarantee you I won't cover every other's school tradition like IU has.
Mac, your first paragraph had some credibility; I threw all of that out when you blamed any of the current situation on the fans.
If fans won games, Purdue would have beaten UW in '04...and probably aOSU in '07. Fans don't win games, teams do. They do help though...
I don't blame anyone for not wanting season tickets with the culture of mediocrity that's crept in during the last few years.
Simply because other schools have simpletons & lemmings filling seats in spite of lousy products on the field, doesn't mean that's right.
I got an idea- beat a ranked team...oh, once out of every five times...then the fan base might have some energy. Predictability and an 0 for 15 record isn't going to energize anybody. Hell, even a horrible UM team beat UW Saturday; they might not win again this season, but their fans are stoked about '09.
It's the classic chicken and the egg argument. If we had 110,000 rabid "lemming" fans coming to every game even how bad your team is (ala UM or ND), talent will still flock there. This goes back to your initial post. You can win developing talent, but everything has got to click most of the time. Give me 11 of the dumbest most talented people in the country (ala Noel Devine), and I'll get you a win or two against rank teams no matter how ugly we may have looked against lesser opponents. If I was even a mid level recruit, I would look at the lifeless crowd at Purdue and be turned off. The only thing that would make me consider Purdue is the chance to see the field early in my career.
Like you said though, if it wasn't for "Shout", Purdue would never get any recruits. Thank God for that.
More band, less jumbotron crap. The commercials on the jumbotron is just plain embarrassing. If you go to Ohio State or ND, you don't see any jumbotron crap during stoppages, only band.
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