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IllustrateD volume 24, issue 4 37 f Arkansas Class 6A state championship game. And 56 of his kickoffs were touchbacks. But his expertise is in punting, where he averaged 42.2 yards per punt. "He punts it so high," Pine Bluff coach Bobby Bolding said. "I've had a lot of good punters over the years but nobody that gets the hang time he does." But McGehee won't be handed the punting respon- sibility without some competition. Meadows will get a crack at it in the spring after backing up Webster, but not punting in a game, the last two seasons. In training camp, those two will compete to handle kickoffs, too, where Meadows put only six of his 37 at- tempts into the end zone last season for a touchback. But it's at place-kicker where the Boilermakers might have the most concerns. Griggs hit only six of his 12 at- tempts last season and is just 10 of 19 in his two-year Purdue career. After the season, Purdue informed McGehee that it'd like him to continue working on his field goal kicking, and he has. Aside from the individual work he does, whether at the goal posts outside his house or at a weight room, he travels to Nashville, about a seven-hour drive, about once a month to meet with former Tennessee All-Ameri- can James Wilhoit. "I'd say that I've come a long ways in my field goal kicking in the past month alone, just because I've been working my butt off on it," McGehee said. "I hate to say it this way, but I'm kind of like a snake in the grass; I pay attention to what my opponents are doing. I kind of pay attention to what Paul's and Thomas' strengths are because when you're a kicker you're battling for your po- sition first of all and then once you earn your position, you're playing yourself every week. I know Purdue was 50 percent on field goals last year, so I just kind of focused on hitting the same ball every time on field goals, not so much long field goals, just repeatability, having the best ball contact I can. Then, all the sudden the ball jumps off my foot and I don't care how far beyond the goal post it goes as long as it's good." j "We know he's a winner. He knows what it takes to be successful and he works tremendously hard." Assistant coach Marcus Freeman on Austin McGehee r e c r u i t i n g f e a t u r e : e l i j a h s i n d e l a r BY BRIAN NEUBERT BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com T he fax machines had hardly stopped buzzing for the Class of 2014 before Purdue struck its first blow — and a big one — for its 2015 class. Elijah Sindelar, considered one of the top quarterback prospects nationally, committed to the Boilermakers just five days after signing day, and might have done so even sooner had weather not canceled a few days of school. After a trio of unofficial visits — two for games, then a return trip Jan. 19 — the 6-foot- 4 QB from Caldwell County High School in Princeton, Ky., was sold. "I committed out of respect for other teams," Sindelar said after making the call to Purdue. "When I stepped foot on campus that last time, I knew I wanted to go to Purdue. I felt like I didn't want to hang other teams out to dry and wait (very long) when I knew I was going to Purdue. I felt like I should go ahead and commit and allow other teams that were recruiting me a chance to go a different route and recruit another quarterback while there was still time." That's an uncommonly conscientious ap- proach for a high-profile recruit to take nowa- days, the alternative being to wait, rack up of- fers and raise one's profile as much as possible before ending the recruiting process. "I guess I'm not like a lot of kids," Sindelar said. "I'm pretty humble, I think, and I don't like too much attention. I figured, 'When I know, I know, and then it's time to make a decision.'" On one hand, Sindelar said, it was an easy decision, QUICK STRIKE Kentucky QB puts Purdue's 2015 class off to fast start Elijah Sindelar