-It sounds like IU will hear from the NCAA today for hiring and keeping an historically dirty coach on the payroll. Can't remember that guy's name right now, but I can tell you that if a guy like me can predict how his time at IU would go, the smart folks on the board and in the athletic department should have been able to as well. I think IU's punishment might just reflect that principle.
-No Purdue players were in the first or second team for the All-Big Ten honors. This is historic as it has never happened to Purdue. While I think there are some quite noteworthy players, Purdue's talent seemed to be in positions in which there was a glut of talent for the league (i.e. linebacker & RB). Congrats to Heygood, Kerrigan, Orton, Pender, Sheets, Tardy and Williams. All are worthy of some sort of praise as they all had games or stretches of games in which they dominated. I liked both Magee and Baker a whole bunch, but, intangibles aren't as easy to measure as hard numbers, so it's not surprising that they weren't honored by the media and coaches.-Heygood was named as Purdue's MVP at the yearly end-of-season football awards banquet. Baker, Duong, Adams, Brigandi and Maci were all honored as well. I look for Maci to make a bit of noise next year opposite Kerrigan off the bench behind Brown. I think Sheets method of displaying his displeasure about the overall situation kept him out of the honors.
-A ton of recruits visited for the IU game...and a couple of noteworthy guys pretty much said, "Purdue is solid." That isn't exactly a strong vote of confidence, but it's better than saying, "Purdue stinks." Perhaps next year when the staff's not in transition and the system is a bit more in place Purdue will move from "solid" to flat-out "great" in the minds of many of the fence-sitting 18 year old potential Boilers.
-I look for Sterling Griffin and/or Xavier Reese, along with Sam Barrington to commit in the next few weeks...I also think that Matt Lancaster and Claudyson Calixte will both commit after receiving late offers from Purdue. Keep in mind, I'm just reading tea leaves...but if these four committs come to fruition, Purdue will have only five-or-so slots left. These can easily be filled with a few JuCo players and a wild card or two. While the class would be far from ideal and might not receive a bunch of pub, the team would get much faster with this group and a lot of needs would be fulfilled. The only problem I see in this group is I only see two or three in the entire group that would see the field in their first season in West Lafayette...that's without a shocking high-star commit that no one sees coming. Also noteworthy, Coach Hope mentioned that he received two verbals that haven't yet come public with their committment; I'm looking forward to seeing who those two are.
Much like pre-season rankings, predictions about recruiting classes are worth little more than entertainment, in my mind. There are so many variables from when a kid signs and his graduation that can change his trajectory as a player.
-Our Boilers have a big week ahead of them as they'll face Boston College, and probably Oklahoma. I am interested to see how they handle facing a true force in the low post as Oklahoma's Griffin is a beast. But, BC's up first and our old pal Robert Vaden's UAB team stands in the way of OK. Yes, Vaden was at Cathedral High School when I was there 15 years ago. Actually, it only seems like he's been around for a million years since his initial committment to Gene Keady during his Frosh season in high school. Ahh, memories.
