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Practice Point: Purdue WR Young done for season

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Senior receiver Domonique Young's college career is over, Coach Darrell Hazell confirmed after Purdue's Wednesday practice.

Young injured his right leg after being hit low trying to block on a run play against Illinois and was carted off the field. He stayed overnight in a Champaign hospital and only recently was able to get an MRI. That MRI revealed ligament damage that will require season-ending surgery, Hazell said, though he wasn't specific as to the injury.

"I know he’s upset because he’s worked so hard to get to where he’s going," Hazell said. "It’s just a little setback. We’ll have to help him get through it."

Young's absence is significant. He'd emerged into a consistent, big-play receiver in his final season with the Boilermakers, leading the team in receiving through the first five games with 29 catches for 338 yards, as a perfect complement to DeAngelo Yancey.

Bilal Marshall, who'll step into Young's starting spot, said Young is irreplaceable because he's a "special" player and person.

Young was raised by a single mom in Los Angeles and attended junior college — by taking two buses and a train every day — before coming to Purdue. In his first season in West Lafayette last year, Young got a concussion on a brutal hit early in the season and had up-and-down play after coming back. But Young solidified his spot as one of Purdue's best receivers with a solid camp in August and carried production that into this season's first five games.

And not just as a pass-catcher.

Young's physicality showed up in Purdue's run game as a blocker on the edges, too. Marshall said Young was physically dominant against the Illini before getting hurt, saying Young had three pancake blocks, unheard of from a receiver.

"I’m going to do my best to honor him as much as possible," Marshall said. "I’m going to play as hard as he was playing. Blocking as physically as he was blocking. I’m going to produce the way he was producing. I’m more than capable of doing it. I’m just making sure we have no type of fall off. ... Domo was special more than his physical stature. He was life. He was so happy just to be here, coming from where he came from, going the junior college route, didn’t think he was going to play football again. He was just so happy to be around.

"Sometimes he was so happy, he was annoying. Now that I look at it, I’m grateful for him to be here, for him to be one of my friends. We definitely are going to be in it for the long run. I’m just going to honor him the best I can this whole season."

That type of gushing wasn't limited to Young's teammates, though, who were visibly shaken as he was carted off the field last week.

Receivers coach Gerad Parker may have had the most heartbreaking moment in that game as he gently cradled Young's head and whispered encouragement into his ear before Young was carted off.

"We freaking love that guy," Parker said Wednesday. "We’re all so proud. This is what intercollegiate athletics is all about. A guy comes from where he’s come, to grow the way he’s grown in a little over a year and to be who he is as a human being, that guy comes to work and smiles and has learned and going to get a college degree and has a bright future — and still does. We were talking about where we were hoping he was going to get to three, four months ago and look where he was. That guy played his best game (Saturday). He physically was dominant. It’s a tough hit to us because who he is and how much we care for him as a room and as a team."

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