To help commemorate the 20-year anniversary of Purdue's magical turnaround 1997 season, GoldandBlack.com's staff will break up the rosters and select the best players to wear a Boilermaker uniform since Coach Joe Tiller's first season on the sidelines.
GoldandBlack.com's 20-year Purdue player draft will have 100 players chosen — two picks each day over the next 10 weeks. Boilermakers who were on the Purdue roster between 1997-2017 are eligible for selection. The draft order is Alan Karpick, Stacy Clardie, Kyle Charters and Brian Neubert.
Karpick's up at No. 9 ...
With all the debate on our message boards about serpentine drafts, and the like, I admit it is nice to have three picks in the first nine overall. But then again, if this was a serpentine draft, I would also have had three picks in the first nine.
Oh well.
I will also admit it's especially nice when you can get a player the likes of Akin Ayodele in the first nine selections.
Akin Ayodele's name means warrior, and he played like one. And while the D-end was a very capable linebacker for a decade or so in the NFL, I remember that defensive coordinator Brock Spack's experiment with Ayodele at that position at Purdue didn't work so well, and they moved No. 13 back to the defensive end.
Ayodele had discipline, brute strength and determination. Remember, he was an academic "casualty" in Joe Tiller's first recruiting class, and headed off to junior college for a couple of years before returning to Purdue in 1999. And Purdue was glad he did as with the graduations of Rosevelt Colvin and Chike Okeafor the year before, the Boilermaker defense almost instantly filled that void with Ayodele. And on the Rose Bowl team, Ayodele, while just a junior, was the elder statesman of a very young defense (five freshmen starters) that proved to be good enough to get the Boilermakers to Pasadena.
Ayodele and Jeff Zgonina are tops in Boilermaker history, averaging 18.0 tackles for loss per season (Ayodele is actually six on the all-time list having played just the three years). So my most vivid memories of Ayodele was that he always was in the opponent's backfield making good use of his great motor.
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