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Complete camp coverage: 2017 primer

T.J. McCollum is best-suited for playing inside the box.

In Nick Holt’s system, that translates to the “Mike” and “Will” linebacker spots.

On the first two days of Purdue training camp, Ja’Whaun Bentley lined up as the starting Mike and Markus Bailey lined up as the starting Will.

And left McCollum standing on the sidelines watching during first-team reps before trotting onto the field with the 2s.

It’s not a place he wants to stay.

So when the pads finally came on Saturday — the first time McCollum got to don them since last season because he missed the spring with a shoulder injury — maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising that McCollum found himself getting a handful of snaps with the first-team defense.

And by the time Purdue opens its season against Louisville in less than a month, it won’t be surprising if McCollum is getting much more than a handful.

McCollum left Western Kentucky, where he’d won championships, for Purdue and its recent non-championship level of play. In part, it was to follow Holt, his position coach and defensive coordinator at WKU.

But another big part: To prove to himself, to others, that he can be a big-time player at the Big Ten level.

To do that he has to actually play.

“I definitely expect to be out there with the 1s,” McCollum said Saturday about where he sees himself by Week 1. “We’ll see what Coach Holt does. It’s Coach Holt. You never know what’s going on in that brain of his. So we’ll just see everything he does this year.”

McCollum may not know Holt’s mind, necessarily, but he certainly knows Holt’s scheme. And that’s why he’s such an intriguing piece to Purdue’s defense, even considering he’s been added to a position group that wouldn’t seem to have much need for a talent boost.

Bailey is a budding star as a sophomore who led the team in tackles and interceptions last season. When healthy, Bentley, recently named a captain for the third consecutive season, has shown signs of being a potential all-league type of player. And fifth-year senior Danny Ezechukwu, another captain, is slotted as a starter at the “Sam” linebacker spot, which has more responsibilities in space but also will slide down to act as a pass-rusher at times, too.

This spring, McCollum didn’t get to showcase much at Purdue. He wasn’t cleared yet medically after offseason elbow surgery — the wicked injury that included a dislocation and torn ligaments forced him to miss WKU’s bowl game — but he always was there to address teammates’ questions about Holt or the defense. He did that all throughout the summer, too, and has been quick to chirp up in practices this camp to get guys aligned correctly.

So Purdue has a guy armed with considerable knowledge who’s also a physical specimen at 243 pounds and is entering a final season as a proven player working with the 2s?

McCollum says his approach in camp is with “an open mind.”

“Just coming in, make sure everybody knows what they’re doing, just trying to do my part, not trying to be ‘that guy.’ They already have those guys here,” he said Saturday. “So I’m not just trying to be that guy.

“But when we start playing, everything is going to come together."

At WKU, McCollum was one of the team’s better tacklers, and his aggressive style of play suited him well to get downhill and make plays in the run game.

Holt has seen what a healthy, intense, prepared McCollum looks like: It’s a guy who had nearly 200 tackles in two seasons.

“He can be really good,” Holt said when asked what McCollum can be at Purdue. “He’s around good players. We’ll see. I think the better competition will bring out the better T.J. T.J., physically, he’s as good as he’s ever been due to he took the spring off to get healthy and then he had a great summer — like the other linebackers did. T.J. is as strong as he’s ever been, as big as he’s ever been and as fast as he’s ever been.

“What T.J. does is he knows our defense. So he knows how to play. He knows our expectations and he knows how to take coaching. He’s been through the ringer with us as a staff. He can take hard coaching, and he understands. He’s won a lot of games. He has an expectation level of winning. So I think that will rub off. The kids like him. The other kids are good players. I think we’ll all blend pretty well together here.”

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