GoldandBlack.com's 20-year Purdue player draft: Pick No. 21
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 weekday over the next 10 weeks. Boilermakers who were on Purdue rosters between 1997-2017 are eligible for selection. The draft order is Alan Karpick, Stacy Clardie, Kyle Charters and Brian Neubert.
At the start of the sixth round, Karpick tabs ...
Draft ticker: No. 1-20
Chike Okeafor had a roller-coaster career at Purdue.
Though a townie from a relatively small school, a kid from West Lafayette who helped lead the Red Devils to a state title, Okeafor was in today's world a 4-star recruit. He was offered by Michigan, but chose to stay home and play for coach Jim Colletto. He was a standout linebacker for Colletto, earning a starting nod in Week 4 of his freshman season of '94 and finishing third in the team in tackles before leading the pack for the Boilermakers in 1995. In '96, he moved to outside linebacker and finished third in stops.
After Colletto resigned in '96, Okeafor figured things would carry on under new coach Joe Tiller. What happened was far different, as Okeafor was suspended for a season for off-field issues (which Okeafor thinks, to this day, was unjust), and when the 1998 season rolled around, found himself with his fingers in the dirt at defensive end.
But Okeafor's Boilermaker career ended on the highest of notes as he finished third on the '98 squad with 65 tackles helped by one of the great performances at the position by a Boilermaker. In that contest, Okeafor and Rosevelt Colvin terrorized Kansas State's star quarterback Michael Bishop in the 1998 Alamo Bowl, pressuring him constantly during the contest. Yes, the final score was 37-34, a remarkable win over No. 4 Kansas State to be sure, but the Purdue defense, led by Okeafor's nine tackles was impressive. In truth, the Purdue defense gave up only two scores in the contest against one of the nation's best offenses.
And that dominating performance didn't hurt Okeafor come draft time a few months later. He was a third-round pick in the 1999 NFL draft and enjoyed a decade-long career in the league, signing a $25-million contract with Arizona in 2005.
Okeafor gives my defense a little flexibility as both of my defensive ends can play linebacker. He also has an irascible personality and toughness to him that made him a very, very good college and pro player. He also proved to have the brute strength to play on the defensive line in the NFL. Simply put, Okeafor played the game at Purdue, especially at the end, with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.
But when the chips were down, so to speak, Okeafor was one of the better defenders to play at Purdue in the past two decades.
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