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Gold and Black Illustrated, Vol 28 Digital 4

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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 28, ISSUE 4 61 season. Gilbert coach Derek Zellner fielded many of those calls — Alabama, Louisville, Cal, among them, too — and would check with Plummer to make certain those schools' modest efforts were for naught. "He was totally at peace, content, loyal to Purdue and that was it, end of story," Zellner said. "He said, 'There's no other school.' He was 100-percent set." That's part of Plummer's wiring, Zellner said. Quarterbacks are almost always the faces of their teams. It's just the nature of their positions. But at a position where the spotlight normally turns brightest, Plummer let it come to him, as opposed to seek- ing it out. In the spring of his junior year at Gilbert, Plummer skipped out on the exposure-camp circuit. It normally a significant portion of the recruiting process for quarter- backs, most of which nowadays get their rankings and no- toriety, and often their offers, off such camps in the spring, if not before, then commit early to start off schools' recruit- ing classes. Plummer wanted no part. He didn't engage with recruit- ing media during the process, didn't even talk publicly about his commitment to Purdue until his senior season was over. Zellner remem- bers his resistance to doing a pre-season radio show with some teammates, reluc- tant to attract attention to himself. "He doesn't seek attention, any lime- light at all, which is the complete oppo- site of a lot of kids," Zellner said. "… He didn't want any distractions." As it turned it out, Purdue couldn't have drawn it up any better, to have found the quarterback it wanted quickly and quietly, without much fanfare. At least until December. Then, Jeff Brohm broke normal coach- speak protocol with his words about Plummer being their guy. "He was our No. 1 quarterback and we were fortunate to get him," Jeff Brohm said. "I think he's a competitor and he has all the tools you're looking for. He's grounded. His mental and physical at- tributes are what we're looking for in a quarterback and I think he can come in and compete, do a tremendous job for us." Now, Plummer's enrolled at Purdue with a chance to get a meaningful opportunity already, his coaching staff very much invested in him as much as the other way around. "He has a good arm and very smooth in his mechanics, very effortless in the way he drops back and throws the ball," Brian Brohm said of Plummer after Purdue's first spring practice. "I liked that about him. He has the abil- ity to drive the football (downfield); he has some height to him. And he has some sneaky athleticism, can move around and make plays on the move." Though David Blough's quicker-than-expected return from a major ankle injury has added some experience back into Purdue's spring-ball quarterback fray, at least in a lim- ited capacity, Plummer will get notable snaps through the spring, with Blough limited and Elijah Sindelar out. "It's going to be great he enrolled early and it'll be great for him that he'll have a set of huge linemen in front of him now and get to practice offense every single day," Zellner said. "It will be good for him to learn to not have to look to make big plays every play and to let the play come to him. One of the goals he had this year was to not take bad sacks, Celebrates Student-Athletes Meet You At Arni's TM Elijah Sindelar, Quarterback, Princeton, Ky. Junior, Electrical Engineering. Elijah Sindelar, the MVP of the Foster Farms Bowl while playing with a torn ACL, was one of 67 Boilermakers recognized for their continued success in the classroom with academic All-Big Ten honors, as the Big Ten announced the fall honorees for the 2017-18 school year. Football led the way with 27 Academic All-Big Ten student-athletes. Women's cross country and soccer had 11 honorees and men's cross country (seven) and volleyball (four) had multiple student-athletes recognized. To be eligible for Academic All-Big Ten acclaim, student-athletes must be in at least their second academic year at the institution and carry a cumulative grade-point average of 3.0 or better. Danny Ezechukwu, Joe Schopper, Da'Wan Hunte and Jacob Thieneman all earned both Academic All-Big Ten and honorable-mention All-Big Ten recognition last fall.

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