Brohm wants intense, competitive Purdue training camp; more notes

More from Purdue media day: WR transfer Holmes 'hungry' to prove worth

More: 2017 football primer

Jeff Brohm wants the Boilermakers to go right up to the line.

It’s a thin one, the difference between intensely battling with a teammate during a repetition and taking it too far. But for a Purdue program that’s only won nine games in four seasons, that delicate balance is a must.

And Brohm’s training camp directive is one the Boilermakers are willing to follow.

“Of course, competition brings out the best in everyone,” senior cornerback Da’Wan Hunte said. “That approach that he has, I love it, because the guys in your (position) room, it gets them better. When you’re constantly competing for every rep, there’s a winner and a loser, and that’s the mindset we’ve got to have.

“Not having the success over the last few years, we need to take a different approach. It needs to be different. Us competing every day in everything that we do, I think that’s the right direction.”

Purdue needs a mindset shift, an objective that might be hard to complete during training camp — practices start on Thursday afternoon — considering practices can do only so much. During the season, Purdue will face adversity, it’ll lose, and it’ll have to find ways to respond. In the last four years, and even before that, the Boilermakers have done the first two frequently, without consistently landing on any answers.

“The mindset is as important as anything,” Brohm said during Purdue’s media day Thursday morning. “To say you’re going to win is one thing. To truly believe you’re going to win is another. It’s important we have a great camp, work extremely hard, do our part as coaches, and the players do their parts to compete hard, finish what they do, so that when we take the field we believe we can win.

“Trust me, in college football, there are a couple superior teams and athletes, but there’s a lot of parity throughout the league and every team can do the small things and believe in themselves and win close games, which is important, and you never know what can happen. We want to make improvements this year. How that ends — we’d like to say we’re not concerned about the win/loss record — but we need to get better every week.”

When the Boilermakers checked in for camp on Wednesday, Brohm had a message during a team meeting, stressing that Purdue needs to be tougher, smarter and play harder.

“It’s a matter of demanding that they preform at a high level,” he said. “Letting them know that certain things are unacceptable. Pushing our guys to finish, pushing our guys to compete. I want a competitive edge to them, want a little bit of testiness when they’re going against each other. I don’t want, ‘This is my buddy.’ No, that’s not your buddy at practice. It’s the opponent. While we don’t want to do anything dirty to them, we want to push to be the best. Guys have to compete in practice. It has to be a competition everyday. It has to be something that carries over to every position, that they are trying to dominant at their position in a team setting in order for their side of the ball, so to speak, to win.”

Then, perhaps, the Boilermakers can gain confidence to take into the season. Along with personnel issues — sorting out the offensive line, finding receivers, aligning the secondary, etc. — it might be the top training camp objective.

“Without question, when we take the field, we’re going to expect to win the game,” Brohm said. “That needs to be our mindset. We need to do everything in our power from now until game time to make sure that all of our players believe that we can do it.”

— Kyle Charters

KeyRon Catlett didn’t do anything this summer that surprised Brohm.

Brohm had seen Catlett workout at a camp in person, and at every request, Catlett delivered. It was why Brohm wanted the Kentucky native with him at Purdue.

But the freshman receiver opened plenty of other eyes wide over the last two months, including Purdue’s assistant coaches and its starting quarterback, with his performance. So what was so special about Catlett that had Brohm and David Blough raving at Big Ten media day last week?

“I simply just played my part in 7-on-7, which was running my routes good and simply catching the ball in traffic and stuff like that. That’s pretty much it,” Catlett said Thursday at media day.

Catlett largely spent the summer working at slot receiver, though he said he also did get limited work on the outside, too, and he’s fighting with fellow newcomer Terry Wright and redshirt freshman Jackson Anthrop and true freshman Tyler Hamilton for snaps at slot. With the spot up for grabs, it created a lively environment in the summer, which surely will continue in camp.

“There’s a whole lot of competing going on,” Catlett said with a smile. “That’s what I was brought here to do was compete, and may the best man win. Lord willing (that’s me) — I’m praying and I’m working hard for it.”

Catlett doesn’t know which unit he’ll line up with on Day 1. Receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard told the group in the Thursday morning meeting that he’d be doing a lot of rotating to see who fits best.

“He said, ‘Whatever you do with your reps is what you do,’ ” Catlett said. “(The receivers) don’t even talk about it. We really just envision everybody out there playing, for real. We just envision everybody out there scoring touchdowns.”

— Stacy Clardie

It’s not yet decided whether Spencer Evans, the new kicking specialist, will be on scholarship.

Regardless, he’ll get a chance to compete, not only as a kickoff specialist — a job he’s likely to win — but also as the place-kicker.

“Right now his strength, in our opinion, is kicking the ball far,” Brohm said. “So how that translates, we’ll see. … I know he comes with the reputation of a strong leg. It is important for us, if you’re able to score points, you’re going to kick off a lot. I know for us the last couple years, we’ve kicked it off more than any team in the country, and it’s important to get the ball into the end zone. It’s hard to cover every kick and not give up big plays. If you have a guy who can get it to the end zone, it makes a huge difference.”

Evans last kicked for Baylor in 2014 and 2015, being the Bears’ kickoff specialist. As a sophomore, he averaged 60-yards and had 39 touchbacks, where as Purdue had only seven total last season.

After signing only a week ago, Evans comes to Purdue with two years of eligibility. When asked Thursday, Brohm could not yet say whether Evans would be on scholarship at Purdue. Purdue has five kickers on its roster, including incumbent J.D. Dellinger, the only one on scholarship.

— Kyle Charters

• Although he didn’t play the position in high school, freshman Viktor Beach starts his Purdue career as a center.

The 6-foot-4, 310-pounder will compete to be Kirk Barron’s backup from Day 1.

“My goal for training camp is to keep staying in the playbook,” said Beach, a Fort Myers, Fla., native. “At center, that’s the No. 1 thing I have to do, be the leader on the offensive line when I’m in there, whatever group it is, just knowing every call to make, the right call to make, vs. whatever front we’re facing.”

• Robert McWilliams played a hybrid position in high school, getting his hand down in the dirt most frequently as a defensive end but also standing up as a linebacker on occasion.

So, not surprising then that he’ll play the same type of role at Purdue, starting out as a Leo.

“I like the get-off, rushing the passer, getting to the ball fast,” the 6-4, 212-pound Coral Gables, Fla., native said. “I see myself doing that here, too.”

— Kyle Charters

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