GoldandBlack.com's Purdue player draft: No. 1 overall
This summer, the Boilermakers will be divided.
That is, they'll be separated into two imaginary teams, set against each other by a GoldandBlack.com Purdue player draft, a daily selection in which separate groups of 25 are assembled.
Over the next two months, GoldandBlack.com reporters Stacy Clardie and Kyle Charters will draft Boilermakers, picking players one-by-one and placing them on their respective teams, trying to assemble the best 11 on offense and the best 11 on defense, plus three wild cards.
Then, in late July, we'll decide — based on GoldandBlack.com staff and member feedback — which team would win.
Who will be selected when? How will the teams develop? What reasoning will be used?
And most importantly, do you agree with the picks? Be sure to discuss at Knucklehead Central.
Via a coin toss win, Clardie gets the first overall pick and selects ...
There may not have been dancing, but there certainly was a hearty (Jake Replogle-esque) fist pump and an as-loud-as-office-culture-allows “Yes!”
When colleague Brian Neubert performed the ceremonial coin flip — with not just any piece of metal but a South African Rand, no less — and Kyle Charters made the call for “bull” but it landed on “eagle,” I was ecstatic.
It meant I had the first pick in our Purdue football player draft.
And we all know how important that first pick is, especially with the way the Boilermakers’ 2016 roster stacks up. There is one player who is high above all others when it comes to critical importance of building a team.
It’s about need. It’s about depth. It’s about talent, to an extent, too.
So, though it’s totally bizarre and goes against most draft-type “rules,” there’s really little doubt who should be the No. 1 pick.
It’s center Kirk Barron.
An offensive lineman as No. 1 overall? An underclassman? And a first-time, full-time starter?
Yup.
Here’s why (and it’s pretty simple): The separation between Barron and the No. 2 center just may be the widest talent differential on the two-deep. In the spring, Purdue started with a walk-on as its backup center — but then he tore his ACL — and then used a freshman who’d never snapped before. And though Cameron Cermin could be a very viable starting center option, I’d much rather have Cermin as a starting tackle. Still, my Barron pick probably puts Kyle in a bind — he would have taken Barron as No. 1, too — because he’ll need to decide just how valuable Cermin is now. So if he goes with Cermin for No. 2, I could grab Jake Replogle — the team’s best player — and have a stud/game-changer on the D-line. If he doesn’t go with Cermin, I could take him at No. 3 and stick it to Kyle. But those are decisions that will need to be made later.
I definitely don’t want to discount Barron as a need-only pick, though. I was pleasantly surprised with the way he carried himself this spring as the “man,” seeming to seamlessly slide into Robert Kugler’s vacated spot. (And I say “pleasantly” because I’m a huge Kugler fan and, honestly, wasn’t convinced Barron could rise to the occasion this spring.)
Barron is a weight-room beast, though, and his strength certainly will serve him well against big-bodied nose tackles. He’s been taking tips from former Boilermaker Nick Hardwick on getting better leverage, too, and even considered working with some wrestlers to improve that part of his game this offseason.
It’s Barron's knowledge that may be even more critical. He must understand fronts, identify defenses and make the right protection calls for Purdue’s offense to have success. Jury is still out on that. But he certainly is the best option there, too, of anyone else on the roster.
And so, in perhaps a surprise/strategy-based move, he’s my No. 1.
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