The Big Ten and the NFL Draft: 1st Round

While none of the players likely to be taken in the top five picks this evening will hail from the Big Ten, the conference will be well-represented tonight at the Music City Concert Hall. I’m going to err on the side of including everybody that could possibly be taken in the first 32 picks in this, partly because it will make my job easier tomorrow when I look at the next two rounds.

Illinois:

Corey Liuget, DT: In a draft less stocked with interior defensive line players (Nick Fairley and Marcel Dareus, for starters), there’s a good chance that Liuget could have been the first player at his position off the board. Even with the deep defensive line stock this year, Liuget is almost certain to go somewhere in the first round, with a range anywhere from the St. Louis Rams at 14 to the Chicago Bears at 30.

Martez Wilson, LB: A stretch for the first round, but possible after an impressive showing at the combine. There’s still some question as to whether Wilson will play in the middle or on the outside, mostly focusing on his ability to cover and fall backwards into a deep Tampa 2 zone. This is a very weak draft for linebackers, especially in the middle, so a team with a serious need (San Diego, perhaps) could reach, but Wilson is probably a late-second to third round pick.

Mikel LeShoure, RB: LeShoure has neither hurt nor helped himself greatly during the pre-draft workout process, showing reasonable speed for his size. Concerns about reliability (he had some poor games against awful defenses like Indiana and Purdue) and receiving skills have dampened his stock. The first round might be a stretch, but LeShoure is a lock to be gone by the second round, and he may be the second running back taken off the board (behind Alabama’s Mark Ingram).

Indiana:

James Brewer, OT: If Brewer played for Illinois or Wisconsin I’d probably just wait until tomorrow to write him up, but he is Indiana’s only hope of sneaking into the first round, so here you go, Hoosier fans! He’s probably a better bet for the third or fourth, though he could go as high as the mid-second round, with some whispers that Brewer might be higher than anticipated on a few teams’ draft boards.

Iowa:

Adrian Clayborn, DE: That Clayborn is still considered a possible first round pick is a testament to his fantastic junior year, because (in my opinion) Clayborn may have been the most disappointing player in the Big Ten last year. The potential is still there, and every now and again the ability snuck through, but despite claims to the contrary, Clayborn wasn’t even drawing double teams by the end of last season. Add in that two other Iowa defensive linemen will be drafted this weekend, suggesting that he had quite a bit of help in creating pressure, and Clayborn looks like a huge risk. That being said, he’s unlikely to fall lower than the mid-second round, and a mid-first round pick is still possible.

Michigan:

No potential first round picks.

Michigan State:

No potential first round picks

Minnesota:

No potential first round picks.

Nebraska:

Prince Amukamara, CB: The Big Ten’s likely first draft pick this evening, depending upon how you look at things (he never played a single Big Ten game, nor is Nebraska a conference member yet, but why let silly little details like that get in the way?) Most people have Amukamara going with the 7^th pick to the San Francisco 49ers; he’ll almost definitely be the second cornerback taken, after Patrick Peterson.

Northwestern:

No potential first round draft picks

Ohio State:

Cameron Heyward, DE/DT: It’s a little crazy that so much of the Big Ten’s elite talent last year was on the defensive line. It’s also a little crazy that Ohio State and Michigan have only one player combined that could possibly go in the first round tonight (add Penn State to that list as well if you think Stefen Wisniewski has no chance of going in the first). Heyward is probably a lock for the first round, but I think he’s no better than the fourth-best defensive line prospect from the Big Ten, behind Ryan Kerrigan, JJ Watt, and Corey Liuget. Part of Heyward’s value comes from his versatility, as he could play the interior or exterior in a 4-3 defense or play defensive end in a 3-4, so he could go to any team with a need anywhere on the defensive line.

Penn State:

Stefen Wisniewski, OG/C: A stretch for the first round if only because of his position (interior offensive lineman are usually seen as later picks), Wisniewski will nevertheless be one of the first guards taken off the board, whether today or (more likely) tomorrow. He is probably a lock for the second round, though it’s more likely a team with a need for line help at the end of the first round (Chicago, perhaps) would reach for him than that he’ll fall all the way to the third round.

Purdue:

Ryan Kerrigan, DE: The Big Ten’s best NFL prospect this season, if you don’t count Nebraska’s Amukamara. What Kerrigan did last season for Purdue was downright heroic, considering how little talent he had to support him on defense and how long the defense stayed on the field. Unlike Clayborn, Kerrigan was facing double and even triple teams all season, yet his numbers remained solid. The one question mark for Kerrigan is where he will play; a defensive end in college, NFL teams may see him as more of a 3-4 OLB. That limits his potential draft locations, but it shouldn’t keep him from falling out of the first round.

Wisconsin:

JJ Watt, DE: Competitor with Kerrigan for first non-Nebraska Big Ten player taken tonight. I like Kerrigan a little bit more, but that’s quibbling; Watt was a fantastic player last season on a defensive line that, while talented, did not give opposing offenses nightmares (besides from Watt, that is). Like Kerrigan, he may be seen as a better fit for the 3-4; unlike Kerrigan, he would still play defensive end. It’s not impossible that he’ll be drafted as an interior lineman either, but unlikely. Watt is a lock for the first round.

Gabe Carimi: The latest in a long line of great Wisconsin linemen, Carimi isn’t quite the prospect of Joe Thomas but isn’t all that far off. Indianapolis looks like an extremely strong possibility for Carimi with the 22^nd pick; if he doesn’t get taken there, he probably won’t fall much further.

Season Obituaries: Purdue

There are almost 350 Division I college basketball teams. Fans of maybe half a dozen of those 350 schools expect to contend for national championships every year. Fans of 250 or so teams know that they have practically no chance of ever winning the title. Success is measured in other ways for that silent majority of basketball programs: conference championships, perhaps, and in very special years, upsets of historically stronger programs in the NCAA tournament. Morehead State defeating Louisville is their championship.

Every Big Ten team falls into the middle category, neither elite nor destitute (Ohio State and Michigan State fans might disagree, as might jaded Northwestern and Penn State fans). There are no Dukes, North Carolinas, Kentuckys, or Kansases in the Big Ten; the closest fit is Indiana, and they have now been down for long enough that Hoosier fans have learned not to take success for granted.

Great teams at these mid-level programs are built over time, with a succession of solid recruiting classes and a little luck. If everything goes right—if those schools find a couple hidden recruiting gems, if their best players stick around for their junior and senior years, if they can get immediate contributions from a couple of younger players—they have every bit as good a chance to win a championship as those blue chip programs, at least for a year or two. Seldom are these opportunities complete lightning strikes. Even when Final Four runs are unexpected, as with Michigan State in 2010, there is a groundwork prepared. Fans see the growth of the team over time and anticipate when these windows of opportunity might open; that’s why Indiana fans can say “wait for 2014” and not sound completely batty. Quite a bit will still have to go right for the Hoosiers, but at least there is a blueprint.

These years of anticipation are exciting because there’s no saying how things will turn out. Indiana probably won’t win the national championship in 2014 (I’ll take even money on the field if you are offering). But they still might. Every little success on the road to that potential bigger success will only increase the anticipation, a tantalizing athletic foreplay of sorts.

Purdue fans have enjoyed this process, beginning perhaps all the way back when Robbie Hummel, Jajuan Johnson, and E’twuan Moore signed their letters of intent. Every season since, the odds of Purdue winning that elusive national championship got better as those already-spectacular players matured. All Boilermaker fans could point to March 2011 and say, without puffery, that no program would have as good an opportunity as they would. For just a season or two, they would be Duke.

Maybe that opportunity died the moment Robbie Hummel planted his knee at The Barn in last February. Maybe it died a few months later when Hummel reinjured the same knee. Maybe it died only last month, when a Purdue team with two All-America players lost in the Round of 32 to the fourth-best team in the Colonial Athletic Association.

These obituaries are not previews of future seasons; there will be time for that as we near Midnight Madness. Perhaps the return of Robbie Hummel and the development of this season’s role players could lead to an unexpected run; I certainly wouldn’t say that there’s no chance this will happen. But the 2011 Purdue Boilermakers season certainly felt like more than the loss of a game to VCU, or a failure to win the Big Ten Championship, or a failure to make the Final Four. It felt like the closing of an opportunity, the sad wind-down after years of anticipation.

The possibilities for the future are less bounded than even our ability to imagine those possibilities; VCU proved that. Yet the past is permanent, final, without potential for creativity, except only when imagining alternate endings now forever foreclosed. Purdue had their opportunity and failed to reach the ultimate goal. The disappointment of Purdue in 2011 comes not from that single loss to VCU, but from the loss of all those hopes that had come before. This coming season, or perhaps the season following, the cycle will begin anew for Purdue fans, and they can once again return, if only in their minds, to the not-yet-realized universe in which their team will win a national championship. Forgive them, though, for spending a few extra moments mourning the end of the 2011 season, because it was also the end of much more.

Purdue to Run First Kicker-Centric Offense Since 1887

You could do a lot worse if you can make them from the fifty yard line. That's 67 yards, and it looked like Carson Wiggs had a few inches to spare. Given that Wiggs is both talented and a Boilermaker, his ACLs are now utterly uninsurable. If Purdue only had Robo-Punter, they could do away with offense entirely (if they haven't already).

Big Ten Basketball Departures

Jereme Richmond has declared for the Developmental League Draft. The writing was probably on the wall when he was semi-suspended for Illinois's two tournament games, but now its official: Jereme Richmond will be taking his talents to Maine or Reno. Richmond was a McDonald's All-American (Illinois's first since Dee Brown) and made the Big Ten All-Freshman team this season, but his Illini career has to be seen as a massive disappointment. Here's Bruce Weber with a teeth-gritting pat on the back:

Jereme is an extremely talented player who helped us at nearly every position," Weber said. "His versatility and ability to impact the game in a number of different areas are skills that will help him greatly as he pursues his dream of playing professional basketball. We wish Jereme the best and thank him for all he has meant to the Illinois basketball program, from the time he committed as a high school freshman through his contributions this past season.

A guess: Richmond doesn't make the Weber family Christmas Card this year. This isn't a Darius Morris "testing the waters" declaration either; Richmond doesn't know where he's headed, but it's not Chambana. Illinois now loses four seniors and a freshman that played about 20 minutes per game. I can't see Bruce Weber's seat getting cooler next year.


Understandably, Illinois fans are a little skeptical that Richmond has made the correct decision, but (and this is speculation) there's a good chance Richmond wasn't going to be permitted to return next year anyway; the silence from the coaching staff as to the true reason for his suspension suggests academic problems that they can't technically comment upon yet. If so, Richmond is better off earning a salary somewhere than playing for a junior college in Nome.


Cullen Payne is no longer a Hawkeye: Payne played quite a bit as a freshman on Todd Lickliter's final version of the black and gold, but sat most of this year with sports hernia. As such, the loss will be felt a little less than Richmond's departure from the Illini, but he was a starter in the Big Ten as a freshman with (likely) three more years of eligibility, assuming he gets a medical redshirt for this season. He was also a ballhander, which Iowa isn't swimming in at the moment. Assuming he still wants to play basketball, he'll land somewhere in D-1. Black Heart Gold Pants with thoughts here.


Paul Lusk takes the Missouri State position: Assistant coaching positions are funny in basketball. Because there are only three of them per team, every coach is usually seen as essential for either recruiting or game preparation (or they're reviled by their team's fanbase). Teams lose assistant coaches, and life tends to go on.


Lusk was closer to Painter than most assistant coaches are, however, and was seen as something as a coach-in-waiting for Purdue should something happen. With Painter's re-commitment to the Boilermakers, that "something" is more hypothetical than it was a week ago. Hammer and Rails talks about the departure here; Boiled Sports breaks down some potential replacements here, with the caveat that Purdue probably isn't getting a guy like Dakich. Chances are they'll nab a guy no one has heard of, and he'll do fine. Or he'll be hated.

The Matt Painter Story Would Have Grossed $200 Million in 1997

If this were a movie, Mizzou would be Julia Roberts, Purdue would be some objectively more-attractive but less charismatic woman who has a habit of getting under people's skin, and Matt Painter would be ... actually, Matt Painter might just play himself (he is rather dreamy). How we know it's not a movie: Julia Roberts always gets the guy. Instead, it was Mizzou left crying at the alter, while Painter and Purdue are left professing that their love is stronger than ever, an absence makes the heart grow fonder moment if there ever was one.


So Purdue fans are permitted a sign of relief, for a coaching change is always a little traumatic whatever the circumstances; it's even harder when your childhood sweetheart decides you're just not putting in the necessary attention. But these little spats have a way of festering over time. Painter is no longer one of the lowest paid coaches in the conference. The bar has been raised for him just as two All-Americans graduate, and with a few years of lackluster recruiting. Loyalty is nice, but fans have been known to be just as fickle as coaches when things get tough. The next two seasons of Purdue basketball may put their relationship to the test again, and don't be surprised if next time, it's the fans saying "it's not you, it's me." 

Linkfest! 3-30-2011

Robert at A Lion Eye makes the trek to Champaign for the first spring practice and posts some thoughts.


Lake the Posts breaks down the Northwestern basketball season that was. I'll have my own thoughts(?) on the subject in a few weeks.


Ramzy at Eleven Warriors goes through the second stage of grief after a disappointing end to the Ohio State basketball season.


Meanwhile, Travis at Hammer and Rails has skipped straight through to state three over the Matt Painter Saga.


Penn State loses defensive end Pete Massaro for the season. Tough break for a unit destroyed by injuries last season.