It's silly to try to draw any definitive conclusions on a team from a spring game, especially a spring game that wasn't even a game.
But with that said, during a Purdue scrimmage chased indoors by rain Saturday, pretty much everything was new to those of us watching, so here are some general impressions from the highly informal, highly vanilla workout, as well as the spring in general.
Physical talent has never been the issue for Marve, and for probably the first time in his career at Purdue, he was in position to show it Saturday, with no knee issues holding him back.
The sixth-year senior quarterback looked quick and explosive fleeing the pocket, showing a burst previously unseen. Of course, when you're a QB in a spring game like this, knowing that running into contact zone will draw a blow of the whistle instead of a blow to the head, then maybe anybody can look fast.
But still, maybe the better term is healthy. Marve looked full-strength. His arm has always been full strength. There have been no worries there and the laser beam he threw to O.J. Ross for a long TD showed there won't soon be.
Purdue has an honest-to-goodness problem on its hands at quarterback. It can be spun as a good problem, but it’s a bona fide quandary what to do with these quarterbacks.
Marve is the most talented quarterback of the three, the guy with the highest up-side potential and the sort of it factor - it has historically gone both ways with him - that can make an offense a little bit better than it is.
Caleb TerBush is the most experienced and probably the most reliable. And he's now a captain. Hard to bench a captain who just led you to your first winning season after a three-year funk.
Rob Henry is your best athlete, a guy you can win with provided the offense is crafted to suit him. And he's someone others around him really respond to, another sort of it factor.
Danny Hope showed last season he'll play two quarterbacks extensively.
Can you really play three?
Really?
The best situation would seem to be - in my personal opinion anyway - to have one primary QB to run Purdue's standard offense, then mix in Henry as the prototypical Wildcat guy, using him, too, to line up at receiver or in the backfield.
But then who's the odd man out?
I would tend to think Marve's big-play ability and capacity for making something out of nothing gives him an edge. Can't help but think this is an offense that can be profoundly impacted by such characteristics, which is easy to say until he throws that first dreadful pick.
It's your classic choice between the flashy sports car that may not be all that practical sometimes, but does what it does best really well and looks really good doing it, or your frill-less but ultra-practical sedan that fulfills all your needs but may not have that extra gear and may not be quite as exciting.
TerBush is the practical choice here.
But Marve looked really good Saturday.
There are going to be bigger receivers these guys might struggle a bit with if those receivers are good enough, but Ricardo Allen is going to be one of the best corners in college football this season; Josh Johnson isn't all that far behind him; Normondo Harris had two picks Saturday and is essentially a returning starter himself after playing so much nickel last season; and Frankie Williams was one of most gushed-about players of the spring, seemed like. Taylor Richards, too, though safety's his position.
Good corners are hard to find, kind of like big men in college basketball, and Purdue has a few good ones.
But, generally speaking, corners are only as good as the infrastructure around them. The Boilermakers need to generate a pass rush without selling out as they often had to last season. And the safeties must be reliable. That's a major question mark right now.
The Boilermakers pulled out the old Techmo Bowl playbook offensively, keeping everything standard as can be. On defense, they played it straight, showing nothing my untrained eye could decipher as being "new" and not so much as blitzing once, standard spring game protocol.
Couple that with the inevitable personnel limitations that come with spring injuries and the gap between a senior class departing and a freshman class arriving and we saw only a fraction of the team that will take the field in September.
Purdue was without its top running backs Saturday with Ralph Bolden (obviously) and Akeem Shavers being out. Its offensive line was down two starters. On defense, the linebackers corps is decimated and badly in need of reinforcements. The obviously looming return of Dwayne Beckford will help considerably.
The kid who'll be kicking for the Boilermakers in the fall in all likelihood was standing on the sideline in street clothes, having just made the drive from North Carolina.
Lot of question marks still, but that's par for the course this time of year.
This has little to do with what actually happened Saturday, but Purdue's defensive line should be strong.I've had people who'd know tell me with damn certainty that Kawann Short is a first-round pick as a 3-4 nose tackle if Purdue plays that way and may be a first-rounder no matter how they play.
But he'd better be ready for the Mike Neal treatment, seeing how the former Purdue DT got doubled and tripled his whole senior year, often to Short's benefit, as he was a redshirt freshman.
And maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but Ryan Russell has all the makings of Purdue's next really, really good defensive end and seemingly the motivation to make it happen. He's a budding star.
You might have noticed that Carlos Carvajal is confident. Maybe you haven't.But Saturday, and I say this knowing this was a glorified school-yard game in its informality, he showed he has reason to be, catching a couple touchdown passes as a true freshman. One was waved off due to penalty, but hell, I'm counting it.
Carvajal looks the part, perhaps more so than any freshman Purdue's brought in lately. He looks the part of an outstanding tight end prospect, but he also looks the part of an outstanding defensive end prospect.
For now, though, he's an offensive player.
Shameless promo for the guy you simply have to root for this season: Crosby Wright. In the very limited dealings I've had with the senior tight end and newly minted team captain, you see a very nice, very conscientious, very positive person and a high-character guy who's obviously tremendously respected in his team's locker room, your classic over-achiever.
And he's a St. Louis Blues fan (per Twitter) and I think it's really cool to see there's another NHL fan in Indiana.
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