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Purdue recruiting news and notes

Karpick_headshot500x500by:Alan Karpick•02/10/25•

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Welcome to “Recruiting News and Notes,” GoldandBlack.com’s weekly information clearinghouse, a spot for assorted bits of Purdue news, analysis and so on.

PURDUE FOOTBALL

• We are told Purdue will conduct its Pro Day on March 5. GoldandBlack.com has confirmed that OL Marcus Mbow, OL Gus Hartwig, QB Hudson Card, OL Corey Stewart, K Ben Freehill, DL Joe Anderson, DE Shitta Sillah, DE Jireh Ojata and RB Reggie Love will attend. WR Kam Brown will not. No word yet on LB Kydran Jenkins.

• From all reports, Marcus Mbow did well in the Senior Bowl.

“It was a fun experience, making connections and being able to compete some more,” Mbow told GoldandBlack.com. “It was a little while since I’ve last played.”

Mbow and the other offensive linemen will work out on March 2 in Indianapolis.

• OL Gus Hartwig also seemingly had a successful showing at the Shrine Bowl. He made it out healthy and got good reps on tape. It was a long week for him, essentially a seven-day job interview.

• OL coach Vance Vice is having his OL group eat breakfast together each day. Trying to get them united.

PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING

• No doubt, Purdue wanted to land in-state OL Cameron Gorin. But the Boilermaker legacy ended up signing with Louisville. It was a close call. Purdue tried like heck to land Gorin, sending him scholarship papers to sign. It was just difficult for the new staff to build a relationship quickly. Louisville was Gorin’s first big offer and it had an 18-month head start on relationship building. And there is this, too: Father Brandon Gorin played with the U of L o-line coach–Richard Owens–in the NFL. It was tough decision for Cameron Gorin.

• Purdue landed its first 2026 commitment on Wednesday when massive (6-7, 345) Chicago OL Rico Schrieber pledged. His commitment was a bit of surprise. Schrieber had just been on campus last weekend. He told me that he really believed in Boiler OL coach Vance Vice.

Who could be the next commit? Nothing appears imminent. But one guy to keep on your radar is New Paletine (Ind.) OL Brock Brownfield.

• The staff would like to add more offensive lineman. One name for your radar: Martes Lewis, a mammoth blocker who recently hit the portal with a sixth year of eligibility. He played at Merrillville (Ind.) High (Class of 2020) and has one year of eligibility. Lewis played in 39 games for the Gophers with 16 starts. We are told that Purdue is “in the hunt” for Lewis.

• Purdue will hold tryouts for walk-ons on Feb. 14. Hey, you never know what you could unearth.

• Long-snapper Justin Schmidt is a PWO, so he was not included on Purdue’s list of 2025 additions on Wednesday.

PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING

As reported months ago now, Purdue has Texas wing Bo Ogden coming in Friday for a junior year official visit.

The 6-foot-6ish multi-positional wing has been a long-standing target that Purdue will have to convince to leave Austin, where his dad is on staff at Texas, which has presumably offered. Tennessee and Providence are other offers. There were some indications early that Ogden would be very open to leaving home and they sought out Purdue and Matt Painter, but that’s still going to be where we’ll see what happens when push comes to shove.

Ogden is a classic Purdue guy, a substantive player with offensive skill, versatility and a willingness to defend with a physical profile compatible with actually doing it. He could probably guard four positions at the next level.

Anyway, we’ll see. This is Purdue’s fifth uncommitted official junior visit, joining bigs Jamyn Sondrup and Trey Thompson and guards Tay Kinney and Junior County, so there are a lot of balls in their here. Steven Reynolds came for an unofficial, too.

• Checking in on commitment Luke Ertel: He’s averaging 20.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.5 steals for 12-3 Mount Vernon, on sparkling percentages of 53 percent from the floor, 49 percent from three and 89 percent from the line.

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