Purdue Football Recruiting: Is Anything Happening?

Today is Jun 7^th. We are 88 days away from the start of the 2016 football season. After signing a relatively small class in 2016 the 2017 class has at least 18 slots open. This accounts for 16 scholarship seniors on the current scholarship chart and two open spots. Recent departures among the likes of Dan Monteroso and Keith Byars II have opened up spots so I am moving Jackson Anthrop out of greyshirt and back into 2016 because there is room now. In fact, even without Anthrop there are two additional scholarship open for the 2016 season as of now:

Most teams should have more than one member in its recruiting class by now, just over 12 weeks before kickoff. The No. 1 recruiting class, Ohio State, has 13 commits. Most teams have 4-5. Purdue continues to have one: Griffin Alstott, who happens to be the son of one of our greatest players ever. That led to this:

Teams ranked better than Purdue in average star rating: Idaho (moving to FCS), Troy, Harvard, James Madison (FCS), Eastern Kentucky (ditto)

— Kevin Trahan (@k_trahan) June 7, 2016

Yes, Purdue's opening opponent, an FCS team, currently has a better recruiting class. To be sure there are dozens of offers out there. GBI retweets daily almost that players are receiving Purdue offers, but according to Rivals we have the No. 88 recruiting class at the FBS level right now. Here are teams ahead of Purdue:

Appalachian State

UNLV

San Jose State

Idaho (who is DROPPING OUT OF THE FBS LEVEL ENTIRELY SOON!!!!!)

Texas-San Antonio

Florida Atlantic

Central Florida (After an 0-12 season no less)

In the Big Ten alone everyone has at least three commitment except Purdue's single 2-star commitment. If you look at Rivals rankings again Purdue is woefully behind the rest of the conference.

Now, let's remember all the wonderful things Morgan Burke said about the current football braintrust:

Asked if Hazell's buyout played a factor in the school retaining him, Burke replied: "Zero. Z-E-R-O."

"The fact that we came out on the BTN and made it pretty clear he's our guy and we're going to help him be successful," Burke said. "He's done an awful lot of good things. They haven't manifested themselves into the win-loss record."

"It's not popular to people who've already made up their mind, but hitting the reset button just starts things all over again. Throwing in the towel right now would be really premature."

And, lest we forget:

"I think it's going to turn," he said. "We have 36 kids back out of the 44 who were on the two-deep last year, and most of them were in their first or second year of eligibility. The culture of this team internally has really shifted.

"It will be kind of fun to see whether I'm right or if some of the pundits are right, but I'm confident in Darrell."

"I'm big on succession plans," Burke said. "If we could get somebody in early, that person certainly could take the lever and I'd be there to support them in any way I can. The good news is, I think our president, our board of trustees chairman -- who played football here -- and I are all in tune with were the program is right now.

"But I'm pretty confident that the call we're going to have to make is to extend Darrell Hazell, not release him."

So:

• Three straight last place Big Ten finishes
• Consistent bottom of the conference recruiting
• Two new coordinators, one of which was openly mocked by Nebraska fans at his previous job.
  
• A lame duck athletic director making questionable at best decisions.
  
• No proven quarterback,
  
• or offensive line,
  
• or secondary,
  
• or defensive line,
• or kicker.
• A 3-30 record vs. FBS teams in the past three years.
• A 2-22 Big Ten record
• A 1-11 home Big Ten record
• Four blowout losses at home last season to teams that went 6-6 or 5-7.

I am going to go find some good basketball news to report if I can.