I think most people would answer that question better "coach" in the sense of developing players and gameday coaching, but I don't think I agree. This year was an interesting example in the sense that Painter might've recruited the deepest collection of talent at Purdue in most of our lifetimes:
Ranked Seniors: #96, #77
Ranked Juniors: #61, #112 (redshirted)
Ranked Sophomores: #71, #124, #147
Ranked Freshmen: #19, #141
Ranked players no longer with program: #94 (Senior--transferred), #113 (Senior--health issues), #75 (Junior--transferred)
Painter as a recruiter looks pretty impressive from that perspective.
Now one obvious counter-argument is the recruiting for a few years there was really disappointing, and I agree with that obviously, but before that recruiting was generally very good as well with the classes of 2006-2008.
So I don't think we have a talent problem in West Lafayette per se. I think our biggest room for improvement as a program lies more in player development, "coaching", and the intangibles that turn a collection of individual talents into a cohesive, tough-minded winning team. Thoughts?
Ranked Seniors: #96, #77
Ranked Juniors: #61, #112 (redshirted)
Ranked Sophomores: #71, #124, #147
Ranked Freshmen: #19, #141
Ranked players no longer with program: #94 (Senior--transferred), #113 (Senior--health issues), #75 (Junior--transferred)
Painter as a recruiter looks pretty impressive from that perspective.
Now one obvious counter-argument is the recruiting for a few years there was really disappointing, and I agree with that obviously, but before that recruiting was generally very good as well with the classes of 2006-2008.
So I don't think we have a talent problem in West Lafayette per se. I think our biggest room for improvement as a program lies more in player development, "coaching", and the intangibles that turn a collection of individual talents into a cohesive, tough-minded winning team. Thoughts?
