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If his high school playoff draw is favorable - and best we can tell here his team doesn't play 'til Feb. 24, unless we're missing something - then there's a good chance Robby Carmody makes it to West Lafayette for an unofficial visit.
Purdue had talked about trying to do an official visit, but that's not happening, but Carmody may come unofficially. The best-case scenario for Purdue is to get him on campus for an unofficial, without him going to Butler, too, but keeping the official visit in its back pocket for spring or summer or even the fall, whenever he might be closing in on a decision. Purdue does run the risk here of peaking too early on him, and using an official visit ASAP when the player himself might not be planning to commit any time soon might feed into that. But Purdue wants him at a game, for sure.
We'll see.
Brandon Johns, the offered 2018 prospect from East Lansing is supposed to come this weekend, to see two of the teams most heavily recruiting him.
Pittsburgh area point guard Curtis Aiken Jr., a 2018 with offers from Pitt, Tennessee and TCU, among others, is supposed to visit, too, from what we understand.
Some other likelihoods or possibilities would include Clarkston (Mich.) 2019 forward Taylor Currie (who Purdue has been to see this season and is a teammate of MSU point guard commitment Forest Loyer); Caleb McConnell, a 2018 2-guard from Dayton Dunbar; and Tayshon Parker, the home-schooled in-state 2020 guard who Purdue is going to be watching closely. (BN)
At last check with him, he has not yet spoken with Jeff Brohm. Our standard this early in the process with such things is to report a commitment once we know the prospect has spoken to the head coach. That's a pretty universal way to validate a commitment. This time of year, it's very common for assistant coaches to spread around offers - and that's what staffs have to do if they want to recruit at a high level - and then get more thorough legwork done. This the awkwardness of covering recruiting nowadays. Things normalize some as the process goes on and written offers start going out in the summer, but before then it can kind of be a crapshoot.
Esdaille said that he hadn't yet spoken to Brohm. When he does, maybe something comes from that, but for the time being, we're holding off on putting him on the board or even doing a story on him. (BN)
But he has some work to do before he can show what he called explosive ability from the slot: He had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder on Dec. 7 and currently is rehabbing.
“I’ll probably be back (fully) in June or July, but I know I’ll be back for the season,” he said this week. “I’ve just got to keep my rehab going strong.”
Wright actually injured the shoulder late in his freshman season at Coffeyville Community College and played with the injury throughout this season. Despite the injury, he had nearly 1,400 all-purpose yards.
“My shoulder would pop at random times, like if I was hit on the wrong spot, it’d pop out. The only thing I did (to treat it), we found some taping mechanism. We put a brace on it, and I had to just played ball,” he said. “I had to play ball like I didn’t have a messed-up shoulder.” (SC)
We think there might be a pre-existing relationship of some kind there with Purdue's coaches, many of which worked just up the interstate at Western Kentucky before. They offered him pretty quick for Purdue after getting the job here.
We will keep ….
UPDATE: Mabry committed to Notre Dame, apparently. Missed that.
Disregard.
Haha. (BN)
His top priority this spring will be to continue to become a better decision-maker. When asked how he viewed his sophomore season in that respect — how many of the interceptions, for example, were based on bad decisions — Blough said decision-making should be “100 percent of the time.”
“I feel like there’d be some great strings of plays together in a game, 50 or 60 really good plays and then you’d have a handful of two or three that you want back. I don’t know if it’s an errant throw or a tipped ball or trying to fit it into a really tight window or should have thrown it out of bounds and instead I threw it up,” he said. “(So it’s about) don’t be good for 88 percent of the game and be really bad for 12 percent. It’s working on continuously improving that decision-making process where I can be good every snap. I can make the throws. I just have to do it time and time again. Put together a body of work.”
Blough said he's been enjoying the workouts under new strength coach Justin Lovett. They're different than in the past because quarterbacks aren't training with the entire team anymore — they have their own lift times, working with assistant strength coach Domenic Reno while Lovett oversees.
"Everything is quarterback-specific," Blough said. "We're not going to do anything that doesn't help us throw the football well and move in the pocket well, have the muscles we need to throw the football well. It's tough as you want winter conditioning to be, but it's good." (SC)
"That's the conference I want to play in," Johnson said.
Johnson is listed by Rivals.com as a receiver but said he's being recruited for corner.
As with all these in-state players who'll have options, Purdue will want to get them on campus.
Will still don't know when Purdue's junior days are, but it's possible, we suppose, that Saturday could be one.
Purdue just offered Georgia's Tijai Whatley.
"They told me I'm only one of three running backs they're going to offer early," Whatley said.
We'll have more on Whatley next week. (BN)
"I'm on the pace of a junior right now (academically)," Swanigan said, "and whether I'm here or not here, I'm registered for summer classes and ready to go through with them. That will set me up for where I only have a semester-and-a-half left to complete my degree."
We would not anticipate the player-of-the-year candidate being at Purdue next season; we would anticipate him getting that degree done, though, at some point. He's an education major with a GPA well north of 3.0, which will qualify him for Academic All-America honors on top of all the other stuff. (BN)
TV Join us tomorrow at 2 p.m. for 'Gold and Black LIVE,' our weekly show. Our guests will be Purdue quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator Larry Clisby and Boilermaker basketball radio voice Brian Brohm. Wait, no. Long week …
Anyway, showtime is 2. There will be a replay posted in the evening.
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