National Signing Day 2015: The Boilermaker Blueprint

The Boilermakers were able to secure 20 of their 21 commitments that were expected to sign yesterday, leaving defensive end commit Chazmyn Turner as the only remaining unsigned player for the 2015 class.  West Virginia made a late move to flip Turner from Purdue but he has not made a decision yet.  He tweeted earlier that he did not plan to sign at all yesterday, which could end up being bad news for Purdue.

The only other situation of note was Ke'Shawn Vaughn signing with Illinois.  This was not a surprise at all, even though Vaughn had us in his final 3 or 4 right up until the end.  Yes, "word on the street" over these past two weeks was that he was leaning towards Purdue, but there was never any substance to those rumors.  Vaughn had been making a somewhat quiet push for a "package deal" with his high school teammate - a player that Illinois decided to offer, which certainly didn't hurt their chances to get both.  Getting Vaughn would have been nice, but the Boilers still have a very talented group of running backs coming in.

The 20 players that did sign yesterday join the five early enrollment players that signed with the team in mid-December (QB Elijah Sindelar, WR Anthony Mahoungou, RB Markell Jones, LS Ben Makowski, and OL Michael Mendez).  The addition of these kids gives Purdue a solid group to work with for 2015 and beyond, but (according to my numbers) also pushes them past the 85-player scholarship limit.  I have them unofficially at 86 players for next season, but with the fluidity of college football rosters, that number will definitely change over the next couple of months.  Players often leave in the off-season for a variety of reasons (injury, lack of playing time, etc.) so we'll have to wait and see what happens.  Also, my grid might be wrong because, as you might know, I lack integrity and I often drink heavily while I do my research.

So, finally, here they are - all 20 known commitments that signed their letters of intent with the Boilermakers yesterday, broken down by position (which obviously could change) with links to their original H&R commitment articles if you'd like to read more and see them in action.  Welcome to Purdue, gentlemen!