Welcome to this week's “BOILING OVER,” GoldandBlack.com’s weekly information-clearinghouse and analysis column meant for our site members and site members only. We appreciate everyone’s cooperation in helping us keep what is sometimes delicate or proprietary information confined to this message board. This feature allows us to be more flexible in our reporting, to our readers' benefit, and we lose that ability if we can't keep this feature secure and the value of our site's membership at its peak. Additionally, we address recruiting and hiring processes in-depth and often without filter in this feature and we do it behind a subscription-protected barrier for a reason, in hopes of avoiding situations where our reporting can impact the recruiting process, which can happen occasionally.
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First off, we'd like to announce the retirements of a BO institution — our cheesy little basketball and football graphics, which have to go, because we can only use so much media in these things.
PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
The dead period lifts today, and so Purdue's pursuit of 2020 recruits to finish out its class resumes in earnest, and on top of the grad-transfer wire, a work in progress, Purdue has a couple needs It may want to attack this month before the February signing period.
Quarterback: Malik Hornsby remains in play, but his Arkansas official is set for Jan. 25 and the guess here is that that's going to be a pretty appealing option for him. (Baylor still doesn't have a coach.)
Defensive Back: Here's a position to watch for sure. The guess here is that Purdue probably pulled off Chau Smith from Chicago, and that's why he canceled his visit. They were all set to probably get him, it seemed. Purdue does have a new coordinator on defense and that means a fresh set of eyes is looking some of these options over, too.
We'll see, though, about Rashad Battle, the four-star from D.J. Knox's high school in Georgia. Arkansas has apparently moved off of him, opting for junior college recruits instead, and with the January game of musical chairs now in play, we'd think Purdue could get a visit this month, in which case (eye-balls emoji).
D-end: Again, new coordinator = new evaluations = new or different priorities, so we'll see if Purdue sticks with Alabama's Eddie Watkins or Georgia's Jalen Mayala. It seemed telling that Purdue made an in-home visit with Watkins in December, and hosted Mayala for an official visit a few weeks later.
If Purdue has visits lined up for this weekend, we're unaware of it at this point.
We can't say for certain how many spots Purdue has to work with, but assuming that Chase Triplett and Jacob Wahlberg hit this year's books, then that's 22 of the 25 you can sign I a year, which then would leave three spots. Again, understand that coaches know their numbers better than we ever can, but all we can do is the best we can do In projecting that stuff.
Speaking of, here's Purdue's roster at the moment, best we can tell. We've included scholarship players, but also what we'd consider scholarship-type players, to account for the possibility Aidan O'Connell, for example, gets a grant.
Players known to be in the portal are excluded. Technically, they can come back.
Why we capitalized everything, no idea.
QUARTERBACK
AIDAN O’CONNELL JR
JACK PLUMMER SO
PAUL PIFERI R-FR
MIKE ALAIMO FR
WIDE RECEIVER
JACKSON ANTHROP SR
JARED SPARKS SR
RONDALE MOORE JR
DAVID BELL SO
KORY TAYLOR SO
MILTON WRIGHT SO
AMAD ANDERSON SO
TJ SHEFFIELD R-FR
MERSHAWN RICE R-FR
MALIQ CARR FR
MARCELLUS MOORE FR
COLLIN SULLIVAN FR
ABDUR-RAHMAAN YASEEN FR
RUNNING BACK
ZANDER HORVATH JR
KING DOERUE SO
DA’JOUN HEWITT R-FR
TIREK MURPHY FR
TIGHT END
PAYNE DURHAM SO
KYLE BILODEAU R-FR
GARRETT MILLER R-FR
OFFENSIVE LINE
GRANT HERMANNS SR
VIKTOR BEACH JR
DJ WASHINGTON JR
MARK STICKFORD JR
ERIC MILLER SO
WILL BRAMEL SO
JIMMY MCKENNA SO
CAM CRAIG R-FR
KYLE JORNIGAN R-FR
DAVE MONNOTT R-FR
SPENCER HOLSTEGE R-FR
GUS HARTWIG FR
JOSH KALTENBERGER FR
JARED BYCZNYSKI FR
NALIN FOX FR
DEFENSIVE LINE
LORENZO NEAL SR
ANTHONY WATTS SR
DERRICK BARNES SR
JEFF MARKS JR
ROBERT MCWILLIAMS JR
GEORGE KARLAFTIS SO
JACK SULLIVAN SO
LAWRENCE JOHNSON SO
BRANSON DEEN SO
KJ STOKES SO
WILLIE LANE SO
JACK CRAVAACK SO
STEVEN FAUCHEAUX R-FR
DONTAY HUNTER R-FR
SULAIMAN KPAKA R-FR
BRYCE AUSTIN FR
GREG HUDGINS FR
LINEBACKER
SEMISI FAKASIIEKI SR
DAMARCUS MITCHELL JR
JAYLAN ALEXANDER JR
ELIJAH BALL SO
KHALI SAUNDERS R-FR
JACOB WAHLBERG R-FR
CRISHAWN LONG R-FR
CHASE TRIPLETT FR
BEN KREUL FR
CLYDE WASHINGTON FR
KYDRAN JENKINS FR
RYAN BRANDT FR
SECONDARY
SIMEON SMILEY SR
BRENNAN THIENEMAN SR
DEDRICK MACKEY JR
KENNETH MAJOR JR
GEOVONTE HOWARD JR
JORDAN RUCKER SO
JALEN GRAHAM SO
CAM ALLEN SO
CORY TRICE SO
KADIN SMITH SO
MARVIN GRANT R-FR
NYLES BEVERLY R-FR
SANOUSSI KANE FR
ANTONIO STEVENS FR
ANTHONY ROMPHF FR
SPECIALISTS
JD DELLINGER SR
BROOKS CORMIER SO (BN)
PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING
So on Tuesday night, Matt Painter went to Fort Wayne to see Homestead defeat Blackhawk Christian, joining the parade of coaches who took the mid-week opportunity to see two Big Ten prospects go head to head.
Blackhawk's Caleb Furst is a Purdue priority for 2021, though one of many, and also the reason Tom Izzo and Dane Fife were there for Michigan State and the reason Roy Williams and an assistant came up. I believe an IU assistant coach was there, and Illinois' Brad Underwood as well, more so probably for Homestead's Luke Goode.
Painter was keeping up appearances with Furst a few days after he watched Purdue beat Michigan State in Mackey Arena, but he was also there for Goode, who's going to be an interesting follow as the 2021 cycle plays out.
Goode is clearly, well, good-y enough to play at Purdue. His other offers serve as just one reflection of that. My impression is that Purdue agrees, that it really likes Goode and would like to take the plunge on him. We've seen him play probably 20 times and can tell you he's a big-time shooter with Kendall Stephens-type height and length, smart and tough and likely a very good teammate. Not sure he's a Day 1 star at the next level, but he'd be a great piece, the type Purdue would normally be all over.
It has not yet, at least from an offer perspective, for one reason: Scholarship availability.
Purdue's classes remain imbalanced, bottom-heavy as hell right now, with nine underclassmen slated to be on next year's roster. Whether coaches really care about that, I don't think they do as long as they have decent players.
But the reality is that at the moment, Purdue has two scholarships for 2021, the frontcourt needs attention before the backcourt does, and Purdue has two Goode-category players on the roster in Sasha Stefanovic and Brandon Newman, true wing-shooter types who may not necessarily have combo-guard ball-handling and decision-making skills, if that makes sense.
Again, our educated assessment here is that Purdue wants Goode but is just in a spot right now like the one it was in a few years ago with Stefanovic, where it knew it wanted the kid, but it needed some things to happen before it could allot a scholarship to a category that was more luxury than need.
Now, the difference here is considerable: Stefanovic put off offers from Valpo, Milwaukee, etc., to bet on himself that he could get a Purdue offer in the spring. Goode holds offers from Louisville, Maryland, Butler, Stanford, Xavier, Illinois and a bunch of others, and Michigan State is among others definitely interested. If Purdue never offers him, he'll be A-OK one way or another.
We know that Goode was very interested in Purdue early on and remains interested in Purdue despite the fact that it's not yet offered, and even though it can be hard sometimes to get a kid when they're very interested early in the process, then you're the 12th offer and not the first, second or third, we do think Purdue would still be a player for Goode should it offer. Just don't know if that's going to happen before the spring. We'll see if Purdue generates any more scholarship space for that class.
Goode and Furst are tight, good friends.
Where Purdue stands with Furst, not sure much has changed. We do think the big four there are Purdue, Virginia, Michigan State and Ohio State at the moment, with Indiana still on the periphery. We do think Purdue remains a real player there. We also think bigger-name-type places may be appealing, as well, and proximity to home may matter. That could really help Michigan State. Personally, I don't know how great a fit that would be, and I've been right before on that with Michigan State recruits. We'll see. We know Furst has really liked Virginia.
Furst has seen in-person Purdue utterly dismantle Virginia and Michigan State in Mackey Arena. That stuff does not matter as much as people assume it does, or as much as fans would like it to. It can't hurt obviously.
We'll see what happens there. Decision is likely a long way off still.
Purdue is heavily invested in Trey Kaufman, too, and leads for him right now. Requisite disclaimer: Kaufman lives in the Bermuda Triangle as far as Purdue concerned.
Note: We should have an update over the weekend from our freelancer Scott Phillips from five-star 2021 target Max Christie following his visit to Purdue this past weekend. (BN)
PURDUE BASKETBALL AND FOOTBALL
Matt Painter has yet to speak with Maliq Carr, who started classes on Monday, about his place with the basketball program, which may speak to the priority level on both sides of this.
The most likely scenario here has always been that the football recruit dedicate all his energy to football right now, then maybe this summer, get around basketball a bit while still being in football mode, then maybe be on the team next season. We do think it is important to him and not something he'll just drop, nor will it be something football tries to talk him out of now that he's signed. This was a recruiting incentive for him.
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