Recruiting News and Boilermaker notes

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PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING

Huge weekend for basketball recruiting visits.

Purdue will have inside-outside 2026 big man Trey Thompson in for an official visit, their third junior OV of the season already.

Class of 2026 priority Steven Reynolds will be at the Alabama game for an unofficial visit as will be 2026 offer candidates Noah Smith of Plainfield and Jacob Webber of Kearney, Neb., who will stay for much of the weekend. Webber is supposed to be one of the top shooters nationally in his class.

Class of 2027 Pike center Isaiah Hill is coming too. National type of recruit, maybe.

Signee Antione West is coming, as well.

On Sunday, Sebastian Williams-Adams will decide between Purdue, Auburn, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma State. Not a ton of reason to think it will be Purdue, but can’t say we know what he’ll do. People have thought it might be Auburn but there may be some deterrents there. (BN)

PURDUE FOOTBALL

• From what we gather, signs seem to point to Ryan Walters‘ return in 2025. That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be change with Walters back for a third season. His staff would look markedly different. How different? Walters could have an entirely new staff of 10 assistants. Seems ambitious, if not unprecedented. Stay tuned.

The idea appears to be for Walters to step back and be a true head coach, relinquishing any coordinator responsibilities and detailed X-ing and O-ing. Veteran coordinators would be imported to run the operation. It is believed the vetting process already has begun on some possible candidates.

With revenue sharing, up to $22 million annually, on the doorstep of ADs across the nation, expect coordinators (and other assistants) to be the sacrificial lambs because of big buyouts for head coaches. Money concerns are real.

We’ve already seen it at places like Florida State and Oklahoma, where coordinators have been lopped off instead of head coaches. Doling out robust head coach buyouts isn’t appealing right now. It is believed this will be the template as teams finish disappointing seasons but have head coaches whose buyouts are too pricey to dismiss.

• Many staffs include former head coaches as analysts or advisors. Jerry Kill is in such a role at Vanderbilt, for instance, as chief consultant to the head coach and senior offensive advisor. Would Walters bring in such a commodity if retained?

One name that would immediately come to mind would be Purdue alumnus and former Houston, Texas A&M and Arizona head coach Kevin Sumlin, who’s now on staff at Maryland. Sumlin, an Indianapolis native, has remained a pretty ardent supporter of Purdue football, for which his son, Joey, is currently a walk-on. Not that it would matter toward potential employment opportunities, but Sumlin has donated money to Purdue.

Someone who would make sense is Dan Hawkins. Walters played at Colorado for “Hawk,” who most recently was head coach at UC Davis (2017-23). He also was head coach at NAIA Willamette (1993-97) and Boise State (2001-05). The 64-year-old Hawkins, who coached CU from 2006-10, is the director of player and staff development at Idaho State. He’s a sage vet who has been there and done that … and Walters knows him.

• If Walters’ staff is re-made, who could be possible targets? One interesting name is Brock Spack. The former Purdue All-Big Ten linebacker and defensive coordinator is in his 16th season as head coach at Illinois State, where he is the all-time winningest coach. It’s thought the 62-year-old may be ready to step away from ISU. Would Spack have interest in returning to his alma mater as defensive coordinator? Spack may listen.

Another name to keep on the radar: Seth Littrell, who was let go as Oklahoma offensive coordinator on October 20. The former North Texas head coach (2016-22) was targeted to join Walters’ initial staff. (Littrell and Walters worked on Mike Stoops‘ Arizona staff in 2010-11.) Littrell has been in the Big Ten, serving as OC at Indiana under Kevin Wilson from 2012-13.

Some other interesting possible staff names to toss around: Ed Warinner, Ted Roof, Andy Ludwig, Noel Mazzone. Despite what will be a desperate situation in 2025 at Purdue, there should be no shortage of qualified and impressive coaches who could have interest in coming aboard.

We do know East Tennessee State head coach Tre Lamb is on Purdue’s radar.

Please note we are speculating on some of these names. (TD/staff)

• Saturday is Senior Day. A look at the participants:

Cole Brevard
Hudson Card
Jayden Dixon-Veal
Ben Furtney
Christian Gelov
Jalen Grant
Luke Griffin
Gus Hartwig
Kydran Jenkins
Yanni Karlaftis
Damarjhe Lewis
Reggie Love III
Marcus Mbow
Jireh Ojata
Aaron Roberts
Andrew Sowinski
Corey Stewart

Know this: Just because a player is participating in the ceremony does not mean he is playing his last home game Saturday. Purdue gives players the option if they are seniors academically and are going to earn their degree this year to take part in Senior Day. For example, Hartwig walked last year and returned to play in 2024.

Who on the above list is expected back in 2025?

It is believed Brevard will be back. Also expected back: Karlaftis and Lewis.

Dixon-Veal has played only three games, so he could be back in 2025 if he doesn’t play in more than one game the rest of the way. Same goes for Grant.

Everyone else is not expected back.

PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING

On Wednesday, we told you about the 29 recruits expected to be on campus on Saturday for the last home game of 2024. Since then, other visitors have been added, pushing the number to 40 for the Penn State game.

Notable additions to our earlier list:

2025
LB Lucas Szymborski, Cleveland (Tenn.) (Ball State commit)

2026
S Jaylen Pollard, Ravenwood High, Brentwood, Tenn. (Bernard Pollard’s son)
WR Deameion Leavell, Clinton (Tenn.) (Memphis, Marshall, Miami of Ohio, Toledo)
CB Justin Hopkins, Ensworth, Nashville (offered)
WR/CB Bishop Starling, Ensworth, Nashville (7 FBS offers)

2027
S Darius Dennis, Trotwood-Madison, Trotwood, Ohio (10 FBS offers & is potential offer)

2028
(All could be offers at some point in the future)
CB Braylen Gibbs, Catholic, Knoxville, Tenn. (UK, Ole Miss offers)
CB Xavier Bowman, Catholic, Knoxville, Tenn. (Toledo offer)
WR Brooks Johnston, Farragut, Knoxville, Tenn. (Maryland, WKU offers)

• There may be a good chance 2025 Michigan OL Danilo Guberinich will commit eventually. He is supposed to potentially visit Vandy this weekend, but his mom wants him at Purdue–not so far from home.

• As mentioned on Wednesday, 2025 Plainfield (Ill.) Central High OL Kaveon Lee is set to take an OV this weekend. It’s believed he’ll take an OV to Minnesota next weekend then decide.

• 2025 OL commit Kuol Kuol is taking an OV to Iowa State this weekend. Purdue already has seen four of its 2025 commits step away: DT Drayden Pavey (Wisconsin); WR Lebron Hill (Vanderbilt); OL Takhyian Whitset (N.C. State); CB Dawayne Galloway (TBD).

ILB commit Grant Beerman recently visited Illinois.

PURDUE BASKETBALL

• Daniel Jacobsen‘s surgery Wednesday went well. The estimated recovery time remains 4-6 months. He will redshirt this season, though that can’t be made official until he exhausts his eligibility. So prepare for mass hysteria next season when we have to call him a sophomore.

• Assistant coach on defending with Trey Kaufman-Renn at the 5: “We guarded OK. We couldn’t rebound. You’ve got some advantages, but you’ve got to be able to rebound. He said it: ‘I like playing there.’ He did good things, but he had three rebounds and we’ve got to be able to rebound.”

Purdue’s going to keep playing that way because of the offensive dynamics.

“But it’s not just him, but everybody that has to be better,” Lusk said. “We have to be more connected, our defense has to be more compact and we have to be able to get to blockouts.

“Right now we are a really bad defensive rebounding team and we’ve got to be better.”

• I just want to re-up this because we buried it initially and still haven’t gotten to the big clearinghouse piece it was intended to be part of. Jack Benter on redshirting …