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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 3 51 of his limited snaps. But Parker thought it was im- portant for the rookie to get experience and, also, with Landers' academic history, it was important for him to be on the active roster. Landers said during the season he preferred to not redshirt — "They recruited me for a reason, to go make plays," he said — but he had to learn during the season to wait patiently. He focused on getting mental reps, he said, and pulling all he could from veteran re- ceivers Domonique Young, DeAngelo Yancey and Bilal Marshall, all outside receivers like him. "I'm taking little stuff that Yancey, Bilal, Domo do, just in the route-running, I try to put it in my game so that next year I can be that go-to guy or that guy that you'll rely on," he said. He's similar to that group of players with his length and showed, at times, in practices he could use that size to go make plays on balls over defensive backs. But Parker was on him constantly about being consistent, not in just production but in effort. It's an area Landers will have to make strides, becoming more mature in his daily approach. He was stuck in the pit (reserved for injured or disciplined players) for a day during the season because he was late to a practice, but he seemed to respond properly, saying publicly he deserved the punishment. Landers will also need to hit the weight room hard. Marshall joked Landers had never seen a weight room before coming to Purdue, and the stronger Landers gets, the more difficult he'll be to defend. He played at about 205 pounds as a freshman, but he'd like to get stronger for Year 2. "His body hasn't even developed yet," Marshall said. "He's going to be a big guy. He's going to be built similar to Domo and he might even be faster than Domo, quicker than Domo, and he has a unique ability to go get the ball. He has the ability to be special." Kimbrough spent the beginning of the season working with the running backs before moving to receiver. The J.C. transfer also returned kickoffs and punts in the first half of the sea- son and averaged 19.7 yards per return on kicks and 7.1 on punts. But after Parker became interim coach, Kimbrough's special teams roles decreased. On offense, Kimbrough unofficially played 26 offen- sive snaps, touching the ball 14 times. On those touch- es, he gained 73 yards (5.2 per play). That included a 45-yard touchdown catch on a short pass that he made into more in his first game on offense against Illinois — when Hazell still was coach. Other than that long TD, Kimbrough gained 28 yards on 13 touches, a 2.2 average. Franklin spent his redshirt season rehabbing after undergoing multiple surgeries, first to repair a broken finger that required a pin and then on both feet for what Hazell called "toe issues." Anthrop redshirted and was named the offense's scout team player of the year at the postseason banquet. QUARTERBACK Jared Sparks spent his first season learning behind