GBI Express

Gold and Black Express, Vol 25 EX 8

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GOLDANDBLACK EXPRESS • VOLUME 25, EXPRESS 8 • 29 get him out there and see what he can do for us." NEW-LOOK SECONDARY? After allowing its last two opponents to throw for at least 294 yards, Purdue's secondary could look different on Saturday at Minnesota. The Boilermakers spent Tuesday and Wednesday testing out different combinations in the defensive backfield, name- ly inserting redshirt freshman Da'Wan Hunte for seven-game starter Antoine Lewis at one cor- nerback spot and working senior Taylor Richards in starting free safety Landon Feichter's place in the base defense. "We're trying to figure out what are our best combinations back there?" Hazell said early in the week. "We needed to play better back there at every single position. I thought the only guy who really played up to his level was Anthony Brown. The rest of the guys, I thought they strug - gled a little bit. We needed to make more plays and be in bet- ter position to make those plays. So that's an area of improvement we must get better at." Hunte has only four defen- sive snaps in his career, during Purdue's blowout of SIU. Leroy Clark replaced Lewis during the game last week for a couple first-half series and unofficially played a season-high 19 snaps. Secondary coach Taver Johnson has gotten on Lewis for technique during practices this season and has specifically told the senior to follow specific in- structions, not do his own thing. Whoever Purdue would play instead would seem to have some limitations, too, inexpe- rience certainly being one of them. That's, in part, why the Boil- ermakers will implement a phi- losophy change with a person- nel move, too, in the cornerback spot opposite Brown. "We'll play a little bit more field (wide side) and boundary (short side) (on Satur- day)," Hazell said. "We're going to look at (Hunte) and see if he can handle some things and prob- ably take the pressure off a couple of those other guys and see how he matches up with An- toine Lewis to the field (and put) AB into the boundary and Leroy Clark into the boundary. You can protect some of those field guys a little bit by the spacing be- cause there's a lot of no- cover zone to the field a lot of times. So we'll take a look at the next two days and see where we land." If Hunte gets an opportunity to play, he says he's ready for it. "Every day I've been com- ing out here and working hard and just waiting on the oppor- tunity," he said. "Whenever that opportunity comes, whether it's Saturday or next week or the week after, you've always got to be prepared. And I've been preparing every week, studying Tom Campbell Redshirt freshman Da'Wan Hunte could get the first significant defensive snaps of his career Saturday against Minnesota as Purdue's coaches consider changes to the secondary. FEICHTER ON HOT TACKLE STREAK Senior free safety Landon Feich- ter has posted double-digit tackles five games in a row. It is the longest streak of any Boilermaker defender dating back to at least 1993, which is as far back as our game-by-game tack- ling records go in the Gold and Black archives. Here's the list of the longest streaks from 1993-2014 5 Landon Feichter, FS (2014) 4 Willie Fells, LB (1997) Bart Conley, LB (1993) 3 Dwayne Beckford, LB (2011) George Hall, LB (2005) Niko Koutouvides, LB (2003)* Landon Johnson, LB (2002) Stuart Schweigert, SS (2001) * In a string of seven games, Koutouvides had double-digit stops in five. But in the other two games, he fell short with nine tackles.

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