Purdue Football Draft: Day 2 Evaluation

After one questionable pick in terms of value and one bad pick that leads me to believe that Travis needs to be in the concussion protocol, we move on to day two. Things have somewhat improved, but I’m still not impressed.

Pick #3 - Kyle

Elijah Sindelar - B

I really want to play poker with Kyle, because you know he’s folding everything short of a pocket pair of face cards. It’s certainly possible that T-Mill would use his first two picks quarterbacks, and stick Kyle with Sipe or Plummer (not terrible options BTW) but I don’t think Travis has the stones, and I would have made him put up or shut up.

That said, Sindelar is the correct choice at quarterback. Yes, he’s coming off a bad knee, but he’s also coming off one of the hottest streaks of quarterback play we’ve seen since Kyle Orton roamed the sidelines. Sindelar threw for 11 Tds and 2 pick and put up 2 300+ passing yard games down the down the stretch to improbably put Purdue in a bowl game.

Just to put that in perspective, Blough started 5 games, and managed to break 200 yards passing once (Ohio). Like I said, I’m glad Blough’s a Boilermaker, but if you want to light up a scoreboard, Sindelar is your guy.

Kyle managed to draft the starting QB with his second pick, and in a vacuum, that’s got to be considered a win. He only gets docked a grade for being a coward.

Pick 4 - Travis

Grant Hermanns - Grade B+

Travis somewhat redeems himself with his second pick in the draft. Purdue is pretty short on left tackle depth, and Hermanns has the potential to be a good player.

In terms of value, this is a smart way to go. This leaves Kyle with very few tested options to block his immobile QB’s back side. When I mentioned “scarcity of resource” yesterday, this is the type of pick I was thinking about.

Now, what exactly is he getting in Hermanns....that is yet to be determined. The big man from New Mexico looked pretty good for a red shirt freshman starting at left tackle before blowing a knee against Michigan (still finished the game, so you can’t question his toughness) and missing the rest of the season. He should be back to full strength in fall camp. It will be interesting to see what sort of work he’s been able to do in the weight room during his time off.