Purdue Football Continues to Lose Recruits
By Mathew Muncy
If the losing wasn’t bad enough, the Purdue Boilermakers have now lost two of their top 2016 recruits in less than a week.
Purdue is losing on the field and off. On the heels of in-state recruit Collin Miller de-committing, Tennessee recruit Nate Johnson has also backed out of his commitment with the Boilermakers.
247 Sports has Miller visiting Georgia Tech, Syracuse, and Purdue’s rival, Indiana University, over the next couple weeks and they predict he will end up at IU. Miller is currently ranked as the seventh best player in Indiana.
Miller decided to re-open his recruiting on November 9, six days after committing to the Boilermakers. The linebacker from Fishers, Ind. tweeted out a statement on his decision:
Johnson, on the other hand, committed back in June, but since then has started receiving offers from bigger schools like Vanderbilt and the University of Miami. He’s had a stellar senior season at Independence High School – 55 catches for 1,134 yards and 17 touchdowns.
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Both de-commitments come after the 48-14 thrashing the Boilermakers took from the Illinois Fighting Illini. It’s not shocking that head coach Darrell Hazell is starting to lose solid recruits; he is currently 6-27 in a little less than three full seasons with Purdue. And despite reports that Hazell will return as the head coach next season, there is still a chance the University buys out his contract – $6 million.
That uncertainty is always a killer for recruiting, especially when the recruit is specifically coming to play for the coaches. With Hazell’s record, it’s a little curious as to what he’s exactly selling a lot of these recruits on, but whatever it is it doesn’t seem to be working anymore.
The Boilermakers have three games left in the season to turn the ship around or risk losing out on even more recruits. Losing games is one thing, but losing the recruits that you desperately need to complete the rebuild is even worse.
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