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PURDUE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 3, 2010

Danny Hope

COACH HOPE: Thank you everybody for coming. Very excited about today. It's like Christmas. We've waiting a long time to get these guys signed up. We think we did a great job recruiting this class. Adding to our efforts last year, we think we've taken some big steps today towards winning Big 10 championships and being a top-tier football team.
Feel like we really competed well in the recruiting process putting this class together. We recruited some of the top athletes against some of the top schools in the country in some of most competitive areas. So we're very pleased with how it all went, who we got, and the smoothness of the entire process.
We scored well in every area that we had earmarked and went into and recruited, and that's a good sign for our program. We feel like we've met some needs at every position, and even more so some specific needs. That's really important for our football team right now. We have some guys that can impact the immediate future, and a lot of guys from a personnel standpoint that are often difficult to fill spots at.
To give you some examples, we feel like we've got a future difference-maker at quarterback in this class. We had to go out and sign a lot of defensive backs. We had four seniors that started for us that are done with their eligibility. So going out and getting some defensive backs that had enough ability, guys that had enough size and speed and guys that also had good enough grades that we can count on 'em being here and learning and getting ready to play right away was very important.
We're very selective in our choices as far as the secondary goes. We signed some offensive linemen, but more relevant is we got some offensive tackles, and our program really needed some offensive tackles for the future.
We also signed a couple really good line prospects. That's one of my favorite marching orders in the recruiting process is to go out and find some guys that are good enough to play defense and big enough to go to offensive. That was huge the last time I was at Purdue. We did that some last year and this year in this recruiting class.
It very important to go out and find a defensive end, but more importantly, one that could be an off-the-edge rusher. We didn't want to have to go to a guy that was linebacker size to do that. We hit a big defensive end with Rashad Frazier that can come off the edge that's a 6'5' guy. So really, really met our needs in that area.
We signed some numbers at tight ends. We have three senior tight ends. Had to get some numbers at the tight end position. We feel like we signed a special play-maker wide receiver, a physical runningback. We signed a couple of great football players at linebacker whose film absolutely speaks for themselves.
We have more height and better grads in this class. We went out also nailed down a couple of specialists, a long snapper, one of the nation's premier long snappers. We went out and signed an outstanding punter that has to come in and help us next year, and also a combo kicker, a guy that has a big leg that can come in and help us next year maybe kicking off or maybe some in the field goal role as well.
Signed a bigtime defensive tackle, one of the best I've ever been around, a guy that can come here and impact the program with Bruce Gaston. I don't anticipate much academic attrition in this class. Very solid acidemically. Only a couple of guys out of the 20 something that we might have to worry about.
I think the futuristic recruiting efforts, or master plan, if you will, showed up some in this recruiting class. We feel good about progressing that area.
Again, Perdue is easy to sell. A lot of it had to do with all the great things that are here at Purdue and the people and the direction of the program.
So we're excited about how it went, and we feel like we've answered a lot of our needs, some specific needs, and very, very pleased with the entire process and the quality of this class.
So I'll wrap up the opening statement with that and go straight to any questions that you guys might have.

Q. Just that group of defensive backs, like you said you knew you needed it. Just in terms what the recruiting process is when you can call a guy on the phone and say, Hey, you have a great opportunity to play right away, that has to help, right?
COACH HOPE: Well, it's a difference-maker. It certainly gets their attention. It's why we were able to hold onto to some of these quality defensive backs. We have Ricardo Allen coming from Mainland, Florida, and he was a highly recruited player and a No. 1 high school corner that we had on our board. He's ranked one of the most physical corners in the United States, one of the corners in the state of Florida. Very, very physical player. He has star potential. He was outstanding punt returner. Guy that loves football. He was a two-way player.
If we didn't the great need at the cornerback position in the near future, we may not have been able to hang onto Ricardo Allen, because he had offers from Michigan and South Carolina and Florida State at the end. He had over 40 offers. He's an outstanding prospect.
We were able to go out and put a great effort together during the season earmarking about 20 different junior colleges and visiting about 20 different kids during the season. Sending one of our coaches out on Fridays to go nail down a junior college corner. If we didn't have a definite need next year, we may not be able to land the great junior college corner that we did.
We got Antoine Lewis up here from the Chicagoland, Proviso area. Changed his commitment from another top Division I school to come to Purdue because of the need that we had in the secondary.
Same with E. J. Johnson. He's an outstanding safety. Highly recruited, and committed to us early based on our needs in the secondary. Also, we signed Normando Harris, a guy that was kind of under the radar, if you will. He's at a school that had about 15 kids signed Division I. Had a chace to watch him, and he's a 36-inch vertical jump and the No. 1 ranked 170-something-pound wrestler in the state of Florida. A guy that can get 'em on the ground. He's also a very good safety prospect.
But all those guys were really interested in Purdue because of the need that we had in the secondary. It got their attention and kept their attention and kept some of those guys committed to us when the competition got really tough.

Q. Sounds like a nice mix of physical strength and athleticism.
COACH HOPE: I think we did very well secondary-wise. We didn't have a lot of margin for error. We couldn't go take some little peanut guys even though they could run fast and have to wait two, three years for them to get big enough.
We couldn't go out and take two, three, four guys in the secondary that can knew could really fly and could really play, but had the potential to be academic casualties. That wasn't gonna help our needs. So we went out and got good size, good brains, good athleticism, physical guys, guys that want to play early and can come in and compete with the two or three guys we brought in last year.

Q. You obviously have four guys who enrolled early. Can you talk about them, and how much of an advantage does that give them in terms of being able to help right away next year?
COACH HOPE: It's a huge advantage. If you look at the guys we brought in early last year, Antwon Higgs and Dwayne Beckford and Al-Terek McBurse, all these guys got on the field. Particularly Beckford and Higgs, they played a lot. So it's a difference-maker.
We have the junior college corner on campus right now, Mike Eargle, and that's huge for us to have him here and start getting him ready. We have Will Lucas here, an outstanding linebacker from Lakeland high school. Had 170-something tackles his senior year in high school. You look an his film and watch him play, and he's a great football player. We have him here. He can learn our system.
We have De'Ron Flood here who graduated early from O'Fallon high school in Illinois. Get him here and get him caught up credit-wise and get him ahead credit wise. And obviously Gabe Holmes who had to go to school one more semester in order to qualify, great athlete. We had him here, teaching him plays, and getting him ready to go.
So those guys will increase their chances of getting on the field based on need that we have at those spots. If we have a real need like we do at the corner position, it'll make a difference. Did last year and it will come this year.

Q. Talk about Sean Robison and what potential you see from him, what you liked about him.
COACH HOPE: I like everything about Sean. We go out and evaluate in the spring and throughout the course of the year. We literally evaluate several thousand players and we rank them. And after we come back from our areas, we eliminate guys that we don't think we have a chance to get. That's really important, to get the guys that are extreme long shots, that you have no change of getting, off the board.
When we came up with our master list for this 2010 class, Sean Robinson was our No. 1 quarterback on the board, a 1.0. He's the first guy we'd like to have at that quarterback position. He's a great dual threat quarterback, excellent passing potential. You can put him in the shotgun and throw the ball with him every snap and have a chance to win, and you can use him as a ball carrier and as a runner every snap and have a chance to win. Outstanding dual-threat quarterback, one of the top-ranked dual-threat quarterbacks in the country. A lot of people liken him to a Tim Tebo for what he does from a physical standpoint and the same type of intangibles he brings to the field. Excellent, excellent person. Very excited about him. He's one of the top 10 recruits in the state of Illinois.
We had ties to his high school coach, his high school coach, his father, Ken Leonard in Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin, Springfield, Illinois. So we had ties to the Sean's high school coach and his high school coach's dad. So it was kind of a family thing, if you will.
We had been around these guys a bunch over the last several years, and particularly over the last couple months. If you watch the film on Sean, I think it speaks for itself. He had offers from Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Boston College. He's a great get. Star potential for us at Purdue.

Q. I see you got some Indiana kids this year, just a few, but could you talk about them a little bit, and then talk about the importance of being able to I guess make some in-roads in the state in terms of building your recruiting base.
COACH HOPE: Well, we worked Indiana hard last year. There were better numbers in the state this year and more top players. Probably ten players in the state of Indiana this year that we would like to have at Purdue. And any time you can get players that are in the top three or four or five players in the state, you're talking about some guys that can come in and make a difference at anybody's school in the country.
That's were that's where the competition gets tough. Those top five, ten guys in the state are highly recruited. We're thrilled about Joe Gilliam coming to Purdue. He's a great football player. His film is exceptional. He's got outstanding closing speed, he's great in space, and he's a physical player.
All the little things that you spend years teaching your guys to do, your linebackers, you see him doing those things on film. You know, the guys that run routes underneath, he gets his hand on them and flips his hips and gets back in his zones, in his spots. He's a great football player on film. We thought he was the top three or four prospects in the state of Indiana, offered him early, and we were thrilled to death when he committed to Purdue.
Charles Torwudzo was our first Indiana big commit from right down the road, Brownsburg, Indiana. He's about 6'5" and missed a lot of his junior year with a leg injury. He's a good runner with the ball when he catches it, a physical runner. Last year we needed a lot of help at receiver. We went out and signed a handful of wideouts. We needed speed and athleticism, and we got some smaller that are good players. We also need some big receivers at Purdue, and Charles Torwudzo is a big receiver, and we were very, very excited about getting him on board.
The another guy, Ryan Isaac out of the region out of Michigan City, he came to camp. I looked at his junior film and liked it. He came to camp and he was 6'5", 255, 60 pounds, ran about a five flat and did a great job in camp. We offered him a scholarship and committed to us early and then played great his senior year. When we look at his senior highlight videotape, we really think we hit the jackpot and brought another outstanding line prospect to Purdue.
So all three of those guy are really good football players. We're proud to have 'em. They the top players in the state of Indiana, and we're really excited about them coming to Purdue.
Going into the high schools, you know, we didn't sign anybody out of the state of Indiana a year ago. We worked very hard to sign some of the top players in the state and they went somewhere else. We go back into the high schools and we were very well-received. We have a lot Indiana kids on our football team that liked the direction of the program and they've been great ambassadors for Purdue.
I think the high school coaches in Indiana have watched us play and they see how we care about our players and how we go about business. I think they're all behind Purdue. We were very well-received in the recruiting process.

Q. You think the days of you having to play catch-up in recruiting are over? Last year you had to load up on receivers; this year you have to load up on defensive backs. Do you like where your roster and depth chart stands right now?
COACH HOPE: We're catching up numbers-wise. It's not that the cupboard was bare, there were just some gaps behind what was -- on the front of the shelves, if you will. We had four really good players in the secondary last year, and not many players behind those guys. We've had to load up the last two years.
Same thing with receivers. We lost seven or eight receivers off the 2008 squad. Had to load up receiving-wise from a personnel standpoint.
Line prospects: big, tall guys that can run. Guy that have a chance to play on the defensive side of the ball but big enough to go to the offensive side of the ball. That's one of my number one marching orders in the recruiting process, and we have loaded up on a half dozen or a handful of those guys two recruiting classes. That's how you get great, big defensive prospects, and also very athletic offensive line prospects. So I think we're catching up numbers-wise like you're talking about. Still some holes we have to fill.

Q. We always want to know, you know, immediate impact guys, will this class have more or less of those than, say, last year's class? Will you count on them more for playing time right away?
COACH HOPE: Well, based on need in the secondary, a lot of these DBs are gonna have to play. We only have a couple secondary guys coming back that have been in the program. We only of a small handful of guys that are on scholarship at Purdue that play on the secondary, so a lot of these secondary guys are gonna have to play.
When I start looking at the competition that we beat and getting some of the quality of the recruits that we have, there could be some impact players in the class that could impact the football team right away.
Obviously we don't have the punter coming back, so the punter might. We need some help from a kicking standpoint, if you will. We have one specialist back, Carson Wiggs, and two freshman coming in. So we don't know which specialist will be ready to handle come game time. But both of the specialists that we signed, the strong-leg place kicker and the fine punter that we just singed, both of those guys could come in and contribute right away in the very first game.
The big kicker, Linkenheimer, has tremendous leg strength. He's been to some camps, and some of the guys there that run these camps think that he has the strongest leg they've seen in two or three years. Tremendous leg strength. He's a guy that might be able to come in, and if we can get him polished up a little bit he might go to kick off some for us and accrue maybe a few more touchbacks, which would've impacted our football season last year, and it will in 2010 as well.
So the specialists could come in and compete and play right away. Couple big play receivers come in, a guy like O.J. Ross. When you see the film you'll think he can get on the field and play. Secondary guys can get on the field and play. Couple of linebackers that we signed are great football players. They might get on the field.
Gaston, from a physical standpoint, he's 315 pounds and benches 400 and something pounds. Great football player. He has a chance to impact the team possibly right away.
There's a handful of guys that could play here next year. They still need to come here and get it done, but there's a need for some of those guys to step in and help.

Q. You mentioned Gaston. How big a get was that for you? How important is it when you win those recruiting battles?
COACH HOPE: It's really important if he's a great player. When you win a battle and not get a great player ut of it you haven't done anything. But when you win those battles and get a great player, you've won the battle and won the war. He's a great football player, outstanding person, and a good student. He's one of the more dominant defensive tackles I've been around in many, many years. He'll be one of the great defensive lineman to play at Purdue. When it's all said and done, he could be a (indiscernible) player here at Purdue in a lot of ways. (Caller leaving conference.)
The biggest player and catch of the day, but it also opens up a lot of eyes in Chicagoland. It gives you more credibility int eh recruiting process. When you go back there next year and you've got one of the top two or three players out of the entire state of Illinois, that gives you more credibility with the young recruits that are growing up and that know all about him because he is their hero.
So it'll impact us in a lot of ways.

Q. How were you received on the recruiting trail this year? Did you find the wins over Ohio State and Michigan helped or at least maybe caught the attention of some of these guys you were going after.
COACH HOPE: It helped. It got everybody's attention. But we were received very well I think based on how we go about business and how we play the game and how we treat our players. There's a lot of people that really appreciate our program, the direction of the program, the emotion that our guys play with, the closeness of our football team. All those things speak loudly about our program. We were received very well from the recruits and the high school coaches throughout the entire recruiting process.

Q. Maybe talk about the importance of academics. You commented in your opening statement how much focus was given to that. But it made you good in some other direction on some kids, did it not?
COACH HOPE: It did force us to go in some different directions on two or three different recruits. That certainly wasn't the intention when we started out, but we're trying to avoid attrition. And if we can do it at the front end of the recruiting process, that's a lot more forgiving that doing it in the middle of their college careers, particularly at a position like the secondary where whoever we bring in last year, this year, they're gonna have to impact the program in the next couple years.
If they're a struggle acidemically, then they're not gonna change or lives or impact our football team. I've read some comments where they're talking about they guys de-committed. That's not really how it worked out. We recruited them and they're great players and good kids. They're very fast and very good football players.
The early recruiting process is what led up to some of these incidences, because there's such a rush to get the best players to commit. Now the recruits are figuring that out and they get antsy. Next thing you know, a guy that's really a good player that you would love to have, he commits to you early way before he's done all of his academic work.
Over a period of time, some of these guys, their academic performance was not up to par. We were concerned about them not qualifying or not being admitted into Purdue from an admissions standpoint, or maybe not being able to make it at Purdue.
And some of 'em we'll continue to recruit and re- recruit, but we tried to deal with some of attrition at the front end.

Q. The Ohio State game in particular, can you talk about the importance of that game in particular.
COACH HOPE: Well, I think it was an important game in a lot ways as a significant win for Purdue. A great event and one that we'll always remember. It got us a lot of national attention. Obviously the recruits that were here got a great feeling.
Maybe it was a difference-maker and maybe it was not. I think Ricardo Allen came here because he wants to come here and be a three- or a four-year star. So it was a combination, but I think the Ohio State game was the push that we might have needed. But there were a lot of right reasons for each one of those guys to pick Purdue. And if you pick Purdue for all the reasons, then one reason won't change your mind.
I think Bruce Gaston's recruiting experience is a classic example. He chose Purdue for a lot of right reasons. When his position coach took a job somewhere else, he stuck with us because he chose Purdue for a lot of right reasons. It wasn't bells and the whistles of the facilities or just the location or just the position coach or just the academics. It was combination of a lot of things, and that's why he stuck with his commitment even after his position coach, who he was very close to in the recruiting process, had taken a job somewhere else.

Q. E. J. Johnson, what do you like about him? He obviously committed to you early.
COACH HOPE: The loyalty fact I really like about E.J., because we were scared to death somebody was gonna go in there and steal him from us. His coach is very strong. Great character, great intangibles. Once he committed, he was committed. I like the loyalty part of E.J., number one. He's a bright kid, he's got good size, he's a good hitter, and can play on either side of the football. He's a ball hawk when it's in the air. Good size, good athleticism. He was a no-brainer in the recruiting process.

Q. Three of the four quarterbacks you signed here the last couple years have had that label on them, dual threat. What does that say about what you want to do going into the future?
COACH HOPE: I think that's the direction of a lot of college football. We are Purdue and we're gonna be in a spread offense most of the time. After watching us last year, you know we'll use multiple formations and a lot of different types of personnel.
But dual-threat quarterback and a mobile quarterback, that's a no-brainer to me. Somebody that can get away from the rush and make some plays with the his legs, I think Caleb TerBush falls in the same category as well.
So we're sitting pretty good right now at the quarterback spot for the future with guys that can throw it and can run.

Q. The only other thing I wanted to ask you about is before when you said you added some offensive tackles, and the only guy that's listed right now is Jack. Is there somebody else that you earmarked?
COACH HOPE: Any one of those guys that's earmarked as a line prospect. We have some guys that are O line prospects and some guys are defensive line prospects and some guys that are line prospects, meaning that we think they're good enough to play defensive and big enough to go to offensive.
Any one of those line prospects could be a special offensive tackle for us, a lot like Trevor Foy in the recruiting process. Josh Davis, if I had to say, my gut feeling is he'll end up on offense, and Jack DeBoef as well. Both those guys can play tackle. We can find some more guards and centers in the recruiting process. Tackles are harder to find. Big, tall guys lining up out there on the edge and stay in front of the fast edge that are coming off the edge are a premium for us. We hit -- we did very well in getting a couple tackle prospects in this class.
I felt like that's where we had really dropped off when I came back. We had a lot of big guys on the offensive line, but the athleticism wasn't what we needed out on the edges. I think we've made some ground up these last couple years in this area.

Q. To follow-up on Jack specifically, he sort of fits that tailor-made tackle-type guy that you like?
COACH HOPE: He does in a lot of ways. Soon as I saw him on field I liked the way he plays. He's a nasty guy, a tough guy. He like to knock people down. He'll run down field and cover guys up. He rolls his hips and got a lot of whip to him when he hits the guy. He's a hitter. You want to take a hitter and teach him how to block.
Jack DeBoef is a hitter and he's 6'7" and 265 pounds. You sit down and talk to him, and you realize he likes to play and he's got enough about him to want to be a physical player. I like everything about Jack. We hit it off very well.
Saw him on film and loved him and offered him a scholarship. First time I talked to him on the telephone, I knew he and I hit it off well. Just got a gut feeling that he was gonna come to Purdue in spite of all the great offers he had. He had great offers. A lot bigtime colleges recruited him.
I think the offensive line odyssey that we've had here in the past, the number of guys that have gone on to play in the National Football League, the training that I had in place when I was coaching the O line here, who we have coaching the O line here now, I think all these things were a huge attraction to him.

Q. Sean Robinson's athleticism has led a lot of people to speculate that he could move positions, but you really like him at QB, right?
COACH HOPE: We brought Sean Robinson here to play quarterback. He can play a lot different positions. Our top three or four quarterbacks on our team right now, including Sean Robinson, could play other positions. But we brought him here to play quarterback. He throws the ball very well.

Q. Could you talk about Frazier. He was a late pick up for you at a position that seemed like it was a pretty critical need there, defensive end.
COACH HOPE: We were really concerned about the defensive end spot. Haven't landed very many true defensive ends. We're very selective as far as who we want to line up at that spot. Has to be a special guy to fill in that spot. We have some big, strong guys that can play the defensive end position, but we weren't sure we had the off-the-edge rusher for the future that we needed.
We would like to have a great big guy, somebody that's 6'4' or 6'5" to do that with, but we'll take a smaller guy with great speed if we have to. So we had a list of off-the-edge defensive ends that we were recruiting. The very best ones were long shots going to some of the top schools in the country.
The list got pretty lean and we had some real concerns. All of a sudden Rashad Frazier shows up as a prospect. He's a one-year wonder, which doesn't happen very often in football. He played football for one year, and it was all said and done. He had four Big 10 offers and some Big East offers, and became a highly recruited player. He's really a good prospect. He's 6'4.5", 6'5". He's 235 pounds. He's gotten a lot bigger just in the three weeks he's been on our campus eating and lifting weights. His film speaks for itself.
He has a knack for playing football. He does things that you spend years trying to teach guys how to do. Put the film on, it's a no-brainer. Bigtime prospect.

Q. Just wanted to ask you about Mike Lee. What did you like about Mike? I mean, he played a lot of tight end and a little bit of defense.
COACH HOPE: We signed Mike with the intentions to play him at linebacker. He hac play a lot of different positions. He's been a three-year starter at his high school on both sides of the ball at one the great high school in Pennsylvania. They've only had two or three guys in the history of the school do that, and all those guys went on to be bigtime players in the National Football League.
We were looking at junior film, and he has a highlight tape. He played really well in the highlight tape. Showed him going through some agility drills. He was very athletic. We liked him on the tape, we like him in the drills. The staff said if he was big enough, we would love to have him and try him at linebacker.
Drives down here on his own and checks our campus out in the summertime. He's 6'2", about 225, 30 pounds, certainly big enough, so we offered and he came with us. Part of the normal recruiting process. We got the name, we followed up, we got the film, we liked had, he showed up and we liked the way he looked, and we moved on with it. It was a pretty simple thing.

Q. Looking at the obviously four guys from one high school, what is so special about Mainland that has these great athletes?
COACH HOPE: Location-wise, there's not that many schools in the Daytona area. Go down to Dade or Broward County there's a ton of schools all close by and a gazillion players. They get spread around all the schools because there's not a whole a lot of schools in the Daytona area. They're loaded.
I think a dozen guys will sign Division 1 scholarships today. They got a lot of good players. They play hard. A lot of talented guys down there. Went down there and recruited really hard, and Coach Nord did a great job. He was diligent, staying after these guys, working with them, believing what they could get done acidemically. He developed a great relationship with the recruits that their families. They like Purdue they and believe in Purdue. We believe in them and we wrapped it up. They've been solid all along. Credit to the kids and a credit to Coach Nord.
Then a kicker surfaced in our quest to look for a bigtime specialist to add on to our football team, so we took him, too.

Q. Was there someone that you had on the board initially and they just kept popping up in that spot?
COACH HOPE: All of those guys were on our board initially. Some of them were long-shots at the beginning of the recruiting process, particularly a guy like O.J. Ross. He had about 50 offers. Four star recruit. You look at the film on him and he's a great football player. Everyone came back in and tried to recruit O.J. Ross. He had offers from LSU, Michigan, and he sat fast. He's a great player. Great player. We're pleased with all four of those guys coming from that high school. They're guys that just about any school in the country would love to have on their team. Most of the schools in the country went after him.

Q. You talked last year about always wanting to hold a scholarship back. Is there still one in the chamber?
COACH HOPE: We never stop shopping.

Q. Justin Sinz, what caught your eye about him, top notch quarterback from Wisconsin?
COACH HOPE: He was the player of year in the state of Wisconsin. That's a huge honor. His dad is the winningest high school coach in the history of the state of Wisconsin with 300 wins. They won a bunch of state championship, he was the No. 1 player of the year in the state of Wisconsin, he was an all-state quarterback and kicker.
He's got good size, he's a 4.0 student, 1,200 or something like that on the SATS. Great kid, great student, great family. He came to our camp this summer to showcase his quarterback skills. About a third of the way through camp, we realized he wasn't the difference-maker for a quarterback at Purdue, and we asked him to go and run some routes, run some tight end routes, and we thought we might be able to recruit him as a tight end.
He did very well running the underneath routes, great control of his body. He's got a good body. He's 6'4", 230 pounds. We had one other tight end we had already offered that we thought we were gonna get, so we couldn't offer Justin immediately after camp.
We had already offered a guy that we thought was gonna come to Purdue and it didn't work out. We moved on to Justin. He's got everything you want him to have: size, athleticism, great work ethic, outstanding student, knows what it takes to win, top player in the state. Very excited about having Justin joining our team.

Q. Did you have to talk him out of playing quarterback, or was he more than willing to make that...
COACH HOPE: If he wanted to come to Purdue, he was gonna have to play something else. Pretty simple.

Q. You've got one runningback in this class and a lot of runningbacks coming back. What stands out about Reggie?
COACH HOPE: I don't know if we have a lot of runningbacks coming back, but we wanted to sign two runningbacks. But if you're gonna hand the guy the football, you want to had it to somebody that's a special player. We're not just gonna fill a spot.
So we earmarked some really good runningbacks, and we had a couple top runningbacks, highly recruited runningbacks. One of them was a four-star runningback that wanted to come to Purdue, but we had some concerns about the academic part of it.
Then we go to the Dallas Fort Worth area, and we don't spot recruit when we go to a major metropolitan area. We talked about that before in the past. If you're assigned to an area recruiting-wise, I expect the recruiting coach to saturate that area. No one comes out of that area, whether we want him or not, without us knowing about him.
We've done the Dallas Fort Worth area that was, Orlando area that way, east coast of Florida, all the Gulf Coast of Florida, the entire state of Indiana, all the Chicagoland. The coaches assigned to those areas are responsible for saturating that area, and no one gets out of that area without is knowing about it whether we want them or not.
That's a tall marching order, but it's the best way to go in and recruit. Sometimes you can get a guy better than the one that you can't get if you evaluated them all. That happens a lot in Dallas. There's a lot of guys that we weren't interested in all that much, and they were gone pretty quick.
Didn't even want them and they were recruited and committed quick. Because we saturated the area, there were a couple of prospects that surfaced their senior year, and Reggie Pegram was one of them. He's a physical runningback, and we're not gonna recruit very many that aren't physical. We need physical runningbacks in our program.
He has good speed. Not a class sprinter. Reggie is a track athlete, but he catches the ball well, he's a physical runner, he has great vision, he's a high character guy, high-grade guy. His dad's a police officer. Comes from great stock. Heck of a football player.
His film shows up, we look at him. He's 210 pounds in the film. I went down to the school a couple weeks back and visited with him, and he was 220 pounds, 5'10". Hell of a football player. We liked everything about him. He's got some physicalness to him, he catches the ball well, he runs the ball well and he has great vision and good speed. He's a really good physical football player.
The other was one was the big kid in -- big lineman, Ryan Russell. Big Russell kid, another guy that was injured his junior year in high school. Missed most it. We have a coach up there in the Dallas Forth Worth area, Cornell Jackson. He's very familiar with that area. Recruited in the past. We want to get strong in the DFW area again. We were very strong in that area when I was coaching at Purdue last time. Had several great players from that area. So we've got a strong recruiter in this area.
Ryan Russell was injured his junior here. He's 6'5" with his shoes off, 260, 1,100 and something on the SAT. He had one hell of a senior year playing defensive line. So if we hadn't saturated that area, evaluated everyone, we wouldn't have known about Reggie or Ryan. Really glad those guys are here with us.

Q. What about this class should excite fans?
COACH HOPE: I think the quality of the players we brought on board. There's some great players in this class. There's some guys that can come to Purdue and impact the program right away. And some guys that come to Purdue would be some of the top players to ever play at Purdue. O.J. Ross is a great player; Bruce Gaston is a great player; Sean Robinson is a great prospect, player.
So I think the quality of the recruits. The fact that we were able to compete against some of the top-tier programs for some of top players in the country in some of the most competitive areas is exciting for me. The height, because it's a tall class. And academically it's a strong class. Everything about this class the fans should be excited about.
I know myself and all the people involved in our program are very excited about our glass.

Q. Today in Miami, Drew Brees was talking about national signing day and plugging Purdue and talking about the recruiting that you've done in Florida and also in Texas. How special is that, that while Drew is preparing for the Super Bowl, he's still plugging Purdue?
COACH HOPE: Well, he bleeds black and gold, and we bleed Drew. We love him. Anybody that's ever been part of Purdue football and knows anything about Drew is pulling for Drew this weekend. I don't care what your ZIP code or area code is. If you're a Boilermaker, you're pulling for Drew Brees this weekend.
That's great publicity for Purdue to have a guy like Drew in public making those statements. He speaks from the heart, and people know that. He has sincerity, so that's certainly a great message. We have a lot of great exposure in this recruiting class.
You look at the exposure of Bruce Gaston, all the media attention he had when he announced that he was coming to Purdue down there today at Mainland High School. Had about 20 different media outlets there today. Four kids out of a dozen that are gonna sign were wearing black and gold and were wearing Purdue stuff.
Almost the bulk of the media attention and questions was all directed about Purdue. Guys there from Orlando, as far north as Jacksonville, radio and TV stations and newspaper people. So the exposure that we got from this class, Drew Brees saying the things that he said, Bruce Gaston saying the things that he said, great players down there in Mainland and all that attention down there in South Florida, we got great exposure in this recruiting class.

Q. The game never stops for you, I'm sure. Now it's on to the class of 2011. Maybe not tonight, but probably...
COACH HOPE: Oh, yeah, tonight.

Q. That's what I figured. Have you moved up your process now? Do you try to offer guys earlier now that you've been here longer? Is your timetable always the same with each class?
COACH HOPE: We are not gonna offer them unless we want them regardless of what happens in the recruiting world. We have implemented and part of the master plan as a futuristic approach may not have been fully in place when I came on board.
I think we're starting to reap the benefits from that. We had a junior day the other day, and we've already evaluated a ton of juniors in our top areas. We've already offered a lot juniors in our top areas, and lot of the those guys have already came to Purdue. We had about 20 of the top recruits form our area here for the basketball game the other day.
So I think our futuristic recruiting plan is in place and making progress and starting to impact recruiting and will impact our program. No questions about that. Still have a lot of work to do. Haven't cashed in on all the technology that's available. We still can speed the calendar up.
Bottom line is we're gonna offer and recruit the ones that can come here and impact the program and we can win a championship with.

Q. Talk about a little bit about it with Frazier. How important was it to keep on recruiting until the end?
COACH HOPE: Well, we had to because the competition never lets up. Obviously we had a staff change at the D line position, so that was a concern. We were on the phone a lot with both of those guys. Again, they chose Purdue for the right reasons. That's why we were able to weather the storm with the position coach leaving right before the signing day.
We stay on the phone and stay on the road and we recruit hard. If we lose a player, it's not because we got out worked or out hustled. Those things happen. I probably called 20 last night. Tried to call everybody that was gonna sign with us last night just to touch base with them one more time. So we stayed with them all the way up until the ink was dry.

End of FastScripts

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