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 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 is back up in the rotation.

Draft ticker: Nos. 1-49

Perhaps the most debated player of the draft to this point has been award-winning tight end Tim Stratton.

Is he only a product of Drew Brees?

His ridiculous numbers — the 204 career catches (um, fourth all-time), the 2,088 career yards (No. 10 in the record books) — are meaningless because he had an all-everything quarterback?

Does who was throwing passes to him, the offensive system he played mean his production somehow wasn't real?

Everyone seemingly has an opinion on that.

Here's mine: I never saw Stratton play in person, but how can a guy who catches that many balls not have good hands? How can a guy who has that many yards not have done something after the catch? How can a guy who, apparently, earned the trust of such a respected quarterback not be any good?

He was the freaking John Mackey winner as a junior, the award that goes to the best tight end in the country.

As for those "Drew Brees made him" arguments ...

In Stratton's senior season — without Brees and, instead, with a redshirt freshman Brandon Hance — Stratton had a single-season career-high 59 catches. And still had 509 yards and a couple TDs.

For a tight end? I'll take that. Especially on an offense that already has Taylor Stubblefield and Greg Orton and their career numbers near 4,000 yards receiving and 34 TDs.

Membership Info: Sign up for GoldandBlack.com now | Why join? | Questions?

Follow GoldandBlack.com: Twitter | Facebook

More: Gold and Black Illustrated/Gold and Black Express | Subscribe to our podcast

Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2017. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited