2018 Early Signing Day: Where Does Purdue Stand?

We’re on the cusp of signing the best recruiting class in at least 15 years for Purdue Football. It is a critical class because not only does it provide a significant talent boost, it provides depth. For example: the recent departure of Tobias Larry from the program leaves us with only five scholarship linebackers for the bowl game. The injury to Lorenzo Neal leaves us perilously thin on the defensive line, which happens to be adding a wealth of talent in the 2019 class. We have just one more game to play before the 2019 class arrives with high expectations.

So where does the class stand? And how many guys exactly can we sign? Let’s begin by looking at the recruiting rules. The limit for the number of players you can sign in a recruiting class is 25. As it stands right now, Purdue is at 24 players. That does not count David Bell, who will announce his decision in January and will sign with someone during the regular signing period in February.

Here is your look at the current scholarship grid, which will help explain the next point:

As you can see, we’re currently 2 spots under the limit with Tobias Larry and Jess Trussell leaving the program. That gives us a little bit of play, and we might even be able to Cameron Williams, the 4-star linebacker out of Andrean. That is where the shuffle of scholarships comes into play. The recruiting website 247 explains it best:

Every year around National Signing Day, the question arises. How do programs sign more than 25 players when that is the limit put in place for each school?

The answer is simple: up to five early enrollees are allowed to count toward the previous class.

Each college program has a compliance department that keeps track of these numbers, as does the NCAA to make sure each school is following the rule. It can get murky, but let’s say you only signed 22 players in the previous recruiting class. That means you have three extra spots to sign this year, assuming you have the early enrollees to count back.

Last year’s class was 24 players, but a few like Jack Plummer enrolled early. That gives us room in the shuffle to move this year’s early enrollees like George Karlaftis back. Karlaftis is one of a handful of guys that will graduate and enroll starting in January, opening up more room for someone like a Williams. With Karlaftis enrolling in January he counts toward the 2018 class, not the 2019 class, under this method.

There is always the grad transfer market, too. Jeff Brohm has hit that market hard in the past. Dennis Edwards, Josh Okonye, Spencer Evans, Shane Evans, and T.J. McCollum have all been major contributors as grad transfers. McCollum and Edwards were both former players under Brohm at Western Kentucky.

One guy to look for here as a possibility is Western Kentucky linebacker Ben Holt. Holt just finished is redshirt junior season at Western Kentucky and led them in tackles with 116. He has a year of eligibility left and just happens to be defensive coordinator Nick Holt’s son. Kyle mentioned him this morning in his post as a possibility, but that is mere speculation. I don’t even know if he is on track to graduate and he is a team captain for the Hilltoppers. The fact he is coach Holt’s son does make it an intriguing possibility though. I am not sure how he would factor in scholarship-wise, either, as being the son of a staff member might afford him free tuition anyway. It would be a similar situation to what we had with Garrett Hudson when his dad was DC.

The point is that we do have some room here. On Wednesday we should sign 24 and in February we might be able to add 2-3 more guys.