10 Days To Purdue Football: Mike Eargle and Sean Robinson

There are a lot of shared numbers left in the countdown, but it also means the season is almost here. Among today's two players one enters his final season of his meteoric career, while the other hopefully can redshirt as he prepares for the future.

Michael Eargle - Sr.

Hometown: Elizabeth, NJ (Lackawanna Community College)

Cornerback

6', 165 pounds

2011 Projection: Reserve at cornerback

Eargle was brought in last season with the hopes he could start immediately as a JuCo guy at a position of need. As it turned out, we were just fine with Josh Johnson and Ricardo Allen. Eargle was banged up for a good portion of the year anyway. Now he returns as a possible nickelback and key reserve. He saw action in seven games, starting two, and had seven tackles.

Eargle signed with Oklahoma State out of high school, but was forced to go the JuCo route for two years. He was also a basketball player, so those skills should translate well when the ball is in the air. He was able to go through spring practice with the team in 2009. he was also a quarterback for a short time in junior college, so if we get absolutely desperate...

Sean Robinson -So.

Hometown: Springfield, IL (Rochester HS)

Quarterback

6'3", 205 pounds

2011 Projection: Likely redshirt

Robinson was a very promising recruit from Springfield, IL last season but he could have desperately used a redshirt. Unfortunately, he moved from fourth string early in camp to starter at one point due to academics and injuries. He performed about as well as you could expect under those circumstances, completing 41 of 91 passes for 301 yards in in five games. he also had two TD passes and six interceptions.

Clearly, he wasn't ready, but necessity doesn't care about being ready. He is possibly third on the current depth chart, but that depends on where Robert Marve is. I suspect we we will try to redshirt Robinson this season if at all possible, with him learning for the future.

There is a lot of promise in him as a dual threat QB. He managed to rush for a modest 49 yards in 2010 and was one of the top 10 dual threat QB's nationwide in the 2010 recruiting class. The three-star quarterback is both big and mobile. He was a force for Rochester in 2009 season, who was ranked #1 for most of the year before falling in the state semifinals by a point.

Finally, I have to revisit this infamous excerpt from his profile last year:

File the name of Sean Robinson away for the future. He is not going to play this year barring an absolute disaster at the quarterback position. He probably won't play next year, either, as long as Robert Marve is successful and stays. That means the earliest we will probably see him is 2012 when we have a fierce quarterback competition between him, Rob Henry, Russell Bellomy, and Caleb TerBush.

Ouch!