GoldandBlack.com's 20-year Purdue player draft: Pick No. 62
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 nearing completion of her dominant defense with Pick No. 62.
Draft ticker: Nos. 1-61
Learned too late for my liking that if I want someone in this draft, I need to take him, even if it may seem too "early" or a bit of a reach. The Ray Edwards theft by Alan will haunt me for the rest of the my life ... or something ... but I also was hoping to snag Jake Replogle as a backup on the line and he went sooner than I thought, too. I'm hoping the same won't be the case for a certain receiver I really want, but I had to make a choice between that receiver and linebacker Markus Bailey.
I went with Bailey.
Why?
I like everything about the guy, and I want to essentially polish off my defense now, instead of waiting. I realize Bailey has had only one season's worth of production, which could seem odd, then, that he'd be on this list. I would have taken Anthony Heygood at my available OLB spot, but obviously, I missed him by a couple picks, and Bailey was the next guy on my board.
And that one season of production? It was pretty impressive, leading the team in tackles with nearly 100 and interceptions with four.
I think Bailey is going to be a great player when all is said and done, not just because of his physical skill — his athleticism allows him to cover well and his physicality means he can come up and fit holes in the run game — but just as much because of how he approaches the game and the countless intangibles he brings. (They're a big reason why I picked him as the best player on Purdue's current roster last week.)
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