GoldandBlack.com's 20-year Purdue player draft: Pick No. 12
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.
Neubert has the fourth pick of the third round, No. 12 overall, and takes ...
Draft ticker: 1-11
Purdue's had a bunch of really, really good linebackers over these past two decades.
For my money, Landon Johnson was best. Maybe not the loudest or most demonstrative, but the best, a tall, rangy and receiver-fast missile of an outside linebacker that grew into a more physical player than his body type may have suggested when he first showed up. Once he got through the back problems that stunted his growth early in his career, he became a great player.
I'm am building my fake defense on speed and disruptiveness and I think Johnson is a great start to a linebacker corps that will complement my dominant defensive ends — Rosevelt Colvin and Anthony Spencer — well.
In 2003, it was Johnson that led in tackles an outstanding Purdue defense that saw eight of its players go on to enjoy NFL careers. He was a tremendous player at Purdue and I'll expect no less of him as his new fake coach.
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