Left tackle Hermanns feels 'prepared' to start as redshirt freshman
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Grant Hermanns has seen the shirt.
Every year during Kirk Barron’s career at Purdue, the center has gotten a photo printed on a T-shirt and worn it to move-in day or, in this year’s case, early on media day. It’s featured teammates, usually in not-very-flattering situations, to offer a bit of a dig. Jake Replogle and Evan Panfil have been highlighted, and this fall, it was an eighth-grade Hermanns. In a leather jacket and “posed up” in selfie form, as Hermanns described it.
If nothing else, that’s a sign Hermanns has arrived, right?
“I deleted it off Instagram a long time ago, but he screen shot it and found it somehow. I don’t know how he found it,” Hermanns said. “But he found it and put it on a shirt saying, ‘My best friend.’ ”
For a redshirt freshman, it was a high place of honor. But the second-year Boilermaker certainly would like to leave a mark in another way.
Right now — with 11 days completed in Purdue’s training camp — Hermanns is projected to be the team’s starting left tackle against Louisville. He’s gotten every first-team rep during camp, he said. And he’s poised to become the first redshirt freshman Week 1 starter at that vital spot on the O-line since Mike Otto in 2003. Otto went start-to-finish that season, and the only other freshman starter at left tackle since was Martesse Patterson in 2015, for one game.
Hermanns doesn’t seem to think his age or lack of game experience should be any deterrent to success.
He’s ready, thanks in part to the coaching of head coach Jeff Brohm and position coach Dale Williams, he said.
“I’m prepared,” Hermanns said after Wednesday’s practice. “Williams talked to me before we started camp and said, ‘I’m going to push you beyond your limits. I’m going to be on you every single day.’ I think just those two, Brohm and Williams, and my own preparation watching film has prepared me to go out there and put the best product on the field. I’m ready to do it.
“I’m ready to go out there and perform for the guys next to me and my team.”
Hermanns admitted he had some nerves early in the spring when he was thrust into the first-team role. But, by the end of spring, he was getting full-time reps with the 1s. Then, he had the summer to continue to learn the offense and get comfortable. So by the time he stepped onto the field in camp, there was no hesitation.
“Now that I’ve played with those guys and I know I can compete, I know I can get out there and perform, I’ve played against those guys all spring, all summer. Now, it’s just another day of practice and going out there and competing with the 1s,” he said.
Brohm said he likes that Hermanns “looks the part” of a left tackle at 6-foot-7, 295 pounds, and Hermanns has been using that length and athleticism to impress. Both Brohm and Williams mentioned Hermanns’ athleticism as a strength, and Hermanns said it helps him especially in run blocking when he’s pulling and getting to the second level.
He’s more agile than ever, too, because of the way Purdue trained this summer. Director of strength and conditioning Justin Lovett stressed multidirectional and functional speed, and Hermanns said he’s never been this fast or moved this well. That’s helped him react quicker, too, when he’s on the move trying to block corners and safeties.
Though Hermanns’ physical improvements have been considerable — adding weight, especially, has been an ongoing quest for a guy who wasn’t even 200 pounds in the photo Barron chose to expose on the T-shirt — his increased knowledge of assignments and the offense has been upgraded, too, since the spring, Barron said.
Newcomer Shane Evans, who is now playing next to Hermanns with the 1s, said he often will ask Hermanns what is supposed to happen on a play. And Hermanns always has the answer.
That’s just how the youngster is wired: To do whatever he can to be the best that he can.
“I think it’s where I come from. It’s my background, my upbringing, my mom and dad and how they raised me. (They preached), ‘Once you start something, you finish it,’ ” Hermanns said, explaining his mindset. “Then being from New Mexico and not a whole lot of guys come out there. So it’s having a chip on my shoulder. I’m always thinking someone is underestimating me. Someone else is trying to think I can’t make it. My mindset is I’m going to go out there and I’m going to kill every workout, every time I step on the field, in the weight room, in the classroom. Anywhere. I’m going to go out there and I’m going to kill whatever I’m doing.”
If Hermanns can showcase that accelerated learning curve for Purdue this season, that’d be huge.
“He’s just a special dude,” Barron said. “We’re watching film and (I’m) talking to Cole Herdman or (Eric) Swingler or someone and I’m like, ‘You know what? He’s a freshman.’ It’s kind of crazy. Definitely come a long way from out of high school ’til now. He’s going to be a big-time player for us for years to come. He understands what he’s doing. He’s communicating definitely better than the spring. The first couple practices were rough, but he’s learning how to talk a little bit better. He’s done a good job.”
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