44 Days To Purdue Football: Landon Feichter

We have the next player in our countdown, and sadly, he was a guy that made me say, "Who?" when I saw him wearing Frank Halliburton's number.

Landon Feichter - Fr. (RS)

Hometown: Ft. Wayne, IN (Bishop Dwenger HS)

Safety

6' 173 pounds

2011 Projection: Reserve at safety

It is my hope that Landon is another player like Logan Link. Link was a walk-on that has earned his way into a starting role, a scholarship and is now a respected Big Ten safety.

I don't have a good history with walk-ons from Bishop Dwenger in Ft. Wayne. They give me bad memories. In 1996, when I was a sophomore, my beloved Kokomo Wildkats spent much of the basketball season ranked #1 in the state. We finished 19-1, with our only regular season loss coming at Lafayette Harrison in overtime during the final game of the season. Unfortunately, we ran in Ft. Wayne Dwenger in  the semi-state. After a terrible game for us we lost 52-50, thanks most to a player named B.J. Carretta. He had the audacity to guarantee victory over Kokomo, then backed it up by hitting 10 free throws in the fourth quarter to slowly and painfully kill us. He later walked on for a season or two at Purdue.

Why do I have this rambling story? Mostly because I know very little about this walk-on safety from one of the better programs in Ft. Wayne. My friend, Ross Kinsey, a fellow alumnus and someone I had a bunch of broadcasting classes with, works for WANE-TV in Ft. Wayne and has likely seen him as their sports anchor. CG Sports Video has some good highlights of him as well.

Bishop Dwenger High was proud to have Feichter join Purdue. He seems to have had a good career with 18 touchdowns. He scored via the pass, run, on kickoffs, and on punts. We have him as a safety, where he had five interceptions and five fumble recoveries in his high school career. In 2009 he was Dwenger's MVP for a team that was undefeated until a 24-21 semi-state loss to Lowell. His junior season saw Dwenger reach the Class 4A state championship game before losing to Cathedral 10-7.