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Gold and Black Illustrated, Vol 27, Digital 6

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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 6 76 deep. The state — especially the Louisville area, where the Brohm family name car- ries considerable weight — figures to be an important piece of Purdue's recruit- ing puzzle long-term. It's been evident early, as it's landed Allen, Trice, Bramel and Smith from the Commonwealth and competed for some of the best players in that state. Perhaps more relevant in the big pic- ture has been the response Purdue's drawn in Indiana, the backyard that's contributed so much to the program when the program's been strong and so little when it hasn't been. When Brohm was hired in Decem- ber, his first off-campus recruiting trip was taken to the Indianapolis area, visits to some of the state's flagship programs, such as Carmel and Indianapolis' Ben Davis. Ben Davis, where Purdue's been a non-factor for every high-end prospect to come through since Indiana Mr. Foot- ball 2001 James Banks, is now sending a player to West Lafayette for the first time in at least a generation. Ball committed in early June. Ben Davis coach Mike Kirschner has been critical of the former Purdue staff's aggressiveness in recruiting and some of the decisions it made on past Giants players, such as a late offer to running back Chris Evans — now a bud- ding star at Michigan — and no offer at all to linebacker Asmar Bilal, now at Notre Dame. "These guys now are just more aggressive and they un- derstand that the kids in our conference, the Warren Cen- trals, the Carmels, these kids can play at a very high level, our top-end kids," Kirschner said. "I think Jeff Brohm and his staff understand that. They're making a commitment to trying to get some kids out of Indiana to come play for them, instead of IU or wherever. I have kids at IU and Notre Dame, but never anyone at Purdue, which is kind of odd, I think. We've got kids at Minnesota, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and a lot of those kids Purdue didn't even offer, so I do appreciate what Jeff Brohm's trying to do there. I think it's a real positive thing." Purdue's efforts in Indiana have yielded two commit- ments from its A list of targets. Indiana or otherwise, Purdue's been aggressive in re- cruiting, with assistant coaches clearly given latitude in the spring to make executive decisions on scholarship of- fers when situations dictated such. It's also been aggressive in pushing its staff's track re- cord. When Brohm was hired, Purdue hoped it would gener- ate some recruiting cache from his history with prolific of- fenses, to produce some recruiting punch from the offen- sive identity the Boilermaker program would immediately take on with Brohm as coach. Coaches and their recruiting surrogates have been particularly active on social media pushing their Western Rivals.com In early June, Jack Plummer became the first quarterback to commit to Jeff Brohm at Purdue. Brian Neubert Will Bramel is one of three offensive tackles already committed to Purdue and four total offensive linemen.

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