Purdue Football Recruiting: Purdue Gets Fuller

Tario Fuller, out of Buford, Georgia's Lanier High School, decided to pull the trigger on his Purdue offer today. Fuller is the third running back to commit to the Boilermaker's 2015 class, joining Robert Ennis and Markell Brown. Fuller is the first Peach State commitment in this class, and will hopefully be joined by a few more Georgia prospects when all is said and done.

Get ready for it guys...are you ready...I'm not sure you're ready yet...deep breath now...ok, and exhale...and...Fuller is an "off the radar" prospect from an extremely fertile football region of Georgia (as an aside, I will be taking recommendations for phrases other than "off the radar" in the comments section). Lanier put a saddle on Fuller and rode him hard last season. He ended up carrying the ball 260 times, and amassing 1590 yards. When the Longhorns weren't handing the ball to Fuller, they were throwing the ball to him out of the backfield. Fuller ended the season with 16 receptions for 144 yards.

Strengths:

Vision and Patience: Fuller sees and actually hits the designed hole. Most highlight films involve athletic running backs bouncing plays outside and being faster than everyone else on the field. It's impressive, but it can be fools gold, because it's hard to do that consistently in the Big 10, where everyone is big and fast. What I like about Fuller is he appears to actually have the discipline to run the called play and hit the designed hole. This will come in handy during his Purdue career, assuming there are holes to run through at some point.

Quick Feet: Fuller is pretty good at giving a defender a leg, and then taking it away at the last moment, leaving the defender grasping nothing but turf. He moves well laterally, both close to the line of scrimmage, with quick cuts, and in the open field with more fluid moves. It's hard for defenders to get a clean hit even when the do make contact.

Toughness: Fuller isn't much a bruiser, but he will punish tacklers if they try and go high. One highlight run shows him tossing off a tackler in the open field and then dropping his shoulder and punishing the next guy trying to line him up. He runs hard and will break arm tackles.

Weakness:

Top End Speed: He doesn't seem to really run away from kids on the high school level. He has good burst, but usually ends his runs dragging a tackler into the end zone of being caught from behind. That probably won't get much better in the Big 10. He goes against some decent talent in Georgia, but should still be able to separate a little more in the open field.

Pad Level: Fuller runs a little high for my tastes, and subsequently takes some big hits in the open field. He is going to need to figure out how to get behind his pads on the next level, because giving safeties and linebackers big targets usually doesn't end well.

Overall:

Fuller has a style somewhere between the mauling style of Markell Jones and the explosive style of Robert Ennis. While he doesn't have what many people (ok, most people) would consider high level offers (Georgia Southern did run over Florida last year) the Purdue coaches are really high on him. Purdue is going to have to hit on some overlooked talent, and hopefully Fuller can be one of those guys. I look for Purdue to take one more running back in this class, and I'm really hoping for Richard Worship.  Welcome to Purdue Mr. Fuller, pack your long johns because it's going to be a little chilly for a Georgia boy come November.

Junior Highlights:

Additional Game Footage:

http://www.hudl.com/athlete/875663/tario-fuller