GoldandBlack.com's 20-year Purdue player draft: Pick No. 26
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.
Clardie's seventh-round pick is next.
Draft ticker: No. 1-25
About time a cornerback came off the board, and Ricardo Allen's playmaking skills mesh perfectly with the disruptive defensive line I've assembled.
Allen's 13 career interceptions rank second in Purdue's history — behind one of my safeties, Stuart Schweigert — but it's what he did with those INTs that was impressive. Allen turned four of them into touchdowns, the most in school history.
Allen’s on-field presence was remarkable, whether it was his career finale against IU when he had two interceptions and 11 tackles or when for a five-game stretch during his junior season when he insists no quarterback even attempted to throw a ball to his side for fear of his playmaking ability. He wasn’t scared to be a physical player, either, evidenced by how much he enjoyed getting a chance to play nickel and be a key piece in run support. (And, obviously, now playing safety in the NFL.)
But it wasn’t just fun watching Allen during games.
He approached practices with the same intensity and high expectations. He did not want anyone to catch a ball on him — that actually was a goal — and he did not like when he wasn’t healthy enough to practice.
Simply, Allen desperately wanted to be great.
He was so driven, had such a high standard, with such specific goals in mind — he said once his goal was to be the Ryan Kerrigan of cornerbacks, just modeling that work ethic while staying humble and never relenting — and worked so hard to achieve the next level that it’s no surprise he did.
I’m still a bit boggled Allen never was a first-team All-Big Ten selection — he was a four-time second-teamer — though I suppose much of that was because Purdue had little success as a team while he was on the roster. But there's no doubting he was a first-team all-conference-type talent.
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