9 Days To Purdue Football: Mershawn Rice

The wide receiver position is quite the question mark coming into this season. Today, we focus on a player with all the talent in the world, and a great opportunity to showcase it this season.

Mershawn Rice - Senior (RS)

Reynoldsburg, OH (Reynoldsburg HS)

6’2”, 215 pounds

Position - Wide Receiver

2023 Projection: Starter

Rice came to Purdue with high expectations. He was a four star recruit from Rivals and was expected to make an impact early at a key position in a Jeff Brohm offense. However, last season, his fourth in the program, was truly the first season where he was given a big opportunity. He appeared in all 14 games for the Boilermakers and started three of them. Of course, we all know what happened at the WR position last year as AOC and Charlie Jones had a connection that really ate up a lot of the other opportunities.

Rice though still had the best year of his Purdue career finishing the season with 283 yards and one touchdown. A deeper look into his numbers showed that he averaged 12.3 yards per catch which is a nice little average. During the bowl game against LSU (interesting, I didn’t even know those two played in a bowl game, I must’ve blocked it out) Rice grabbed seven catches for 56 yards. Now is the time to build on that momentum and to truly showcase what he’s capable of.