Purdue with 10th ranked portal class

[Bippus33]

Does it matter? Probably all of above.

1 year under C Walters, players have gotten stronger from their strength coach. Burks, Mockabee, Tracy looked like a completely different player, body size and fitness wise. They are taking the Michigan strength coach approach. Turn 3* into 4*, 4* into 5*.
C Walters said his focus is player development from strong recruiting classes instead of plug and play.

The scheme is aggressive, designed for OLB to inflict hurt to the opposing QBs.

Scourton went from 15 tackles, 2 sacks to 33 tackles and 10 sacks.

2023, this defense was still in the oven, not fully cooked. 2024, (to be fair) give C Walters a full recruiting class and transfer class cycle for us to see what this defense is supposed to look like fully cooked.

2023 was more like Defrost.....

 

[cillerdo]

2023 was more like Defrost.....

See. You are warming up to C Walters.

 

[pboiler18]

Totally agree. Pretty good guess as to why he left.

On another note, do you think we could potentially be better without Scourton provided one of the new OLBs provides more speed especially in coverage? It looks like Walters ideal OLB is probably someone more in the Derick Barnes mold. Im trying to convince myself that losing Scourton may not be a total loss.

Mixed feelings here. Scourton’s a freak and a likely first rounder. But ultimately yes, this defense wants guys who can runaround and cover too out of the OLB spot. We made Jenkins and Scourton do it far too much….but that’s the scheme. Madden will be really good here. The other IGA kid the corner, he will struggle mightily as he was not great in true man, hence why he didn’t play a ton. Another guy with good recruiting credentials but not likely good enough to help the D.