Three Thoughts From The Weekend: Purdue football difference-makers, basketball and more

GoldandBlack.com’s Three Thoughts from the Weekend column runs every Monday morning, with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting or whatever else comes to mind. In this week’s edition, we discuss the upcoming Purdue football season, basketball and more.

ON PURDUE FOOTBALL’S GAME-CHANGERS

I have no idea how Purdue football is going to do this year. How can anyone, with everything so new? But I do know that every year for any successful team there are a handful of players who can go either way who have the potential to take a team from one level to another. A team’s best players — Hudson Card, Devin Mockobee, Nic Scourton, etc. — may represent a team’s floor, but these guys represent its ceiling.

To me, here are some of those beyond-the-obvious players.

Garrett Miller: This guy is tops on the list, in my opinion, because he’s the most athletic tight end Purdue has had since Dustin Keller and an almost non-negotiable component to the Boilermakers’ offensive formula if they succeed in putting together a big play-capable unit. But he’s coming back from injury and only now for the first time in his career getting a chance to be the guy.

Marquis Wilson: It would be a cop-out to say “All the transfers” no matter how accurate that would be but this is the one I’m picking out because of the outsized importance the cornerback position may have at Purdue now based on Ryan Walters’ history and the fact the former Penn State DB has Big Ten experience.

Khordae Sydnor: We’re pretty certain about Scourton being pretty good, but every potent edge-rusher or edge-setter can benefit big-time from having another impactful presence as a bookend, and Sydnor looked like a real keeper last season. Remember, Kydran Jenkins is back, too, after being one of Purdue’s defense’s prime playmakers last season.

Deion Burks: Maybe I’m pushing it lumping Burks into this secondary tier, but Purdue’s got to have somebody show up at wide receiver as the game-plan guy, the player you work to get the ball into the hands of and the defense has to plan to stop. Burks’ burst, athleticism and versatility would seem to make him as logical a choice as there is.

Tyrone Tracy: Here we are again prior to a season talking about Tracy as a possible difference-maker. Now, though, there’s the added layer of him being so much of Purdue’s depth at running back, as opposed to wide receiver. He’s fascinating because you’d think a career-long receiver could bring a different element to the backfield and give a creative offensive staff some options. In modern football, running backs have to be part of the passing game. For ball-control football, easy completions are a must, thus the importance of guys like Miller, Burks, Tracy, etc.

Dillon Thieneman: My colleague Tom says the freshman safety is playing this season, part of a secondary that returns Sanoussi Kane and, well … Sanoussi Kane. If Thieneman is ready to help, there’s both depth now and promise for the future. In the Transfer Era, when guys like Thieneman can play, they’re foundational, because chances are they’re going to be part of your program for the long haul and as a result, they sort of become your culture as the names and faces change all around them.

Center: What a brutal break for Gus Hartwig late last season, getting hurt at a time when his senior season would be impacted. One of Purdue’s top-five-ish returning players from last season now likely opens the season idle, meaning opportunities for somebody else at a position where you’d love to have continuity both for the rest of your offensive line and your quarterback.

ON PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING

Come Sept. 1 weekend, dominoes may not start falling, but they’re gonna at least start wobbling.

Purdue will host senior-year official visits the first few weekends of September from years-long targets Travis Perry and Gicarri Harris, with too much sweat equity poured into both to not take ’em if you can get ’em.

If you ask me, Purdue needs Harris, whose physicality and defensive-mindedness are precisely what the program needs at this moment in time.

Perry would be gravy, but delicious gravy for Matt Painter — yeah, I know that’s a weird and creepy thing to write, but I stopped caring years ago — who as you know has an affinity for high-IQ ball-handlers who can shoot and listen. Purdue would probably rather have a guy like Perry in its program for years than have to worry about supplementing its backcourt with a new transfer every year. Continuity is Painter’s gambit in these chaotic times.

These are trying times for coaches planning out their scholarship allotments and taking five in 2024 would create some complications in that regard, but there is a very realistic best-case scenario here in which Purdue finally sets out to over-sign and gets the guys who are good enough to justify the aggressiveness.

ON FRESHMEN IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Because of transfer culture now in college sports and particularly in college football, the high school recruit is less important than ever. Still important but not nearly as important as he’s been historically.

That same undercurrent will inevitably affect how coaches use their freshmen, the best ones at least. The NCAA’s three-game allowance already gave coaches the chance to try players out and still redshirt them, while also providing them the instant gratification, recruiting promise-keeping and developmental punch of “playing right away.”

Now, though, with coaches inevitably having to be retention-minded if not flat-out re-recruiting their teams every year, that adds a layer of consideration of coaches, who may be inclined to play their best rookies to keep them feeling involved and on a path to bigger and better things at your school, even if the transfer market has cannibalized early opportunities for most freshmen.

Also, look, after every one of these seasons nowadays, every player has to ask themselves where they want to play the following year. For most players that’ll be a quick. concise process resulting in them staying put. But for hundreds of ’em, they’re gonna move.

When a coach knows he may be handing some of these guys off to someone else before long, does he really have as much incentive to redshirt them? If you think they help, or get you off the hook for playing someone you know can’t, throw ’em out there.

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