Purdue at Missouri: Depth Charts and Coach Brohm Speaks

The final non-conference game of the season is here and there are a few changes on the depth chart in advance of the trip to Columbia, Missouri:

Offense

QB: 1. David Blough 2. Elijah Sindelar 3. Jared Sparks

RB: 1. Tario Fuller OR D.J. Knox OR Richie Worship OR Brian Lankford-Johnson

WR1: 1. Anthony Mahoungou 2. Corey Holmes 3. Jared Sparks

WR2: 1. Jackson Anthrop OR Terry Wright 2. KeyRon Catlett

WR3: 1. Gregory Phillips 2. Isaac Zico

TE: 1. Cole Herdman 2. Brycen Hopkins 3. Darius Pittman

LT: 1. Grant Hermanns 2. Eric Swingler

LG: 1. Shane Evans 2. Michael Mendez 3. Peyton Truitt

C: 1. Kirk Barron 2. Shane Evans 3. Bryce Brown

RG: 1. Matt McCann 2. Bearooz Yacoobi

RT: 1. Dave Steinmetz 2. Ethan Smart

The only offensive change is removing Markell Jones, who is out for a while after the knee injury he sustained in the Louisville game. Here is what coach Brohm had to say about his progress:

I think he's getting better. Do I anticipate him playing? I don't know for sure yet. I think tomorrow, Wednesday, we might be able to determine more.

But I saw him out there rehabbing while we practiced yesterday. He looked like he had made a lot of progress. I'm not for sure exactly where that is. Probably won't know a little more till Tuesday or Wednesday.

With Tario Fuller coming off of an impressive game against Ohio there may not be many carries to go around.

Defense

DE: 1. Austin Larkin 2. Antoine Miles

DT: 1. Lorenzo Neal or Eddy Wilson

DT: 1. Gelen Robinson 2. Keiwan Jones

DE: 1. Danny Ezechukwu 2. Kai Higgins

WLB: 1. T.J. McCollum 2. Andy Chelf OR Sawyer Dawson

MLB: 1. Ja’Whaun Bentley 2. Garrett Hudson

SLB: 1. Markus Bailey 2. Rob Simmons

CB1: 1. Josh Okonye 2. Antonio Blackmon

CB2: 1. Da’Wan Hunte 2. Kamal Hardy

FS: 1. T.J. Jallow 2. Simeon Smiley

SS: 1. Jacob Thieneman 2. Navon Mosley

Lorenzo Neal is now available for the full game after sitting the first half against Ohio due to a targeting suspension. Coach Brohm also mentioned that Jallow had a minor injury against the Bobcats:

I thought we did, that was good to see. I'm trying to think. T.J. was limited in the game. Didn't get him in the game as much as we would like with his injury. Hopefully we'll be back more full speed this week.

Other than that, I don't think there was anything major.

To be honest with you, he wasn't able to practice a whole lot. If he wants to play this week, he's going to have to practice. He's a young football player that is going to have to practice in order to play. We're going to work with him. I think last week he wasn't able to practice much. I think it affected how much we played him. I think it's important that he gets as much practice times a he can.

He also spoke of Keiwan Jones getting his first start:

I thought he did a good job. He gave us another guy that we got a little more confidence in now, that we can rotate in there. Lorenzo had to sit out the first half. Had to make sure we had at least one more guy in the rotation. Keiwan came ready to play. He can play multiple positions for us. He's worked hard in camp ever since we had him. He's had a good attitude. I was happy to see him do well.

Specialists

Punter: 1. Joe Schopper 2. Jake Herr

Placekicker: 1. J.D. Dellinger and Spencer Evans

Kickoffs: 1. Spencer Evans 2. Myles Evans

Long Snapper: 1. Ben Makowski 2. Ryan Sadkowski

Holder: 1. David Blough 2. Elijah Sindelar

KR: 1. KeyRon Catlett 2. D.J. Knox

PR: 1. Jackson Anthrop 2. Isaac Zico

Coach Brohm wants more in the return game, which has done very little so far:

I thought he did a good job. He gave us another guy that we got a little more confidence in now, that we can rotate in there. Lorenzo had to sit out the first half. Had to make sure we had at least one more guy in the rotation. Keiwan came ready to play. He can play multiple positions for us. He's worked hard in camp ever since we had him. He's had a good attitude. I was happy to see him do well.

We've got a couple receivers and a couple runningbacks that may jump in the mix back there. You always want to make sure you have runners, but also guys that can catch it and are consistent catching it. We're going to look at some more this week and we'll determine that at the end of the week who will be the guy.

Coach Brohm also addressed the dual-kicker situation:

That's the number one reason we went out and found a way to get him. We were fortunate enough to find a way to get him and add him to our team. I think he's been a huge addition. Really his leg strength is second to none. He can really kick the football. Really it's added competition to the other place kicking duties. I think J.D. has done a very good job. With Evans in the mix, those guys are competing. Gives us two guys we feel comfortable with.

While it isn't normal, a lot of teams don't do it, we did it last year. We had pretty good success with it. Last year one guy eventually emerged and became a very good field goal kicker because of it. This year they've rotated, both have done a good job.

It's a great problem to have. We'd like all of our specialists from our punters, second kicker, long snapper, those guys have done a very good job for us.

As for the upcoming game with Missouri, here is what he had to say about the Tigers:

It will be a test for our guys on defense. Any time you face a good passer, the secondary is going to have to step up to a challenge, find a way to get a pass-rush. Haven't produced as many sacks as I'd like. Our secondary is going to be tested this week. You'll find out after the game where we're at in that aspect.

I think we did improve this past week as far as our alignments, being in position. But we still got a ways to go.

I think Missouri will have a very good quarterback and some athletes, they like to throw the football. So against Ohio, just to be blunt about it, they were a running football team, liked to control the clock, didn't quite have the athletes on the outside of the teams we're going to face from here on out. That's going to be the challenge. We got to make sure we don't give them too much cushion, but we challenge what they do. I don't want to give up a bunch of easy completions. We work hard at trying to take away the seam throws and the throws up the middle, the in-breaking routes. Rather throw the ball to the outside as much as we can and force them to have to make the long throw.

Those are the things we've worked hard on. I like our secondary. I think they'll continue to improve every week.