Lawrence Johnson has come a long way since spring and now Purdue needs him

The redshirt freshman is listed as the starter at the position where Purdue is down a critical piece: Senior and co-captain Lorenzo Neal, who is not expected to play at Nevada, who is not known to have returned to practice fully and whose timeline for a return remains open-ended, per Jeff Brohm.

Neal tore his ACL in the regular season finale at Indiana last year, and Purdue's hopes of having him back for the opener were quickly dashed when camp began.

Johnson didn't make the trip to Bloomington last November, as his redshirt year was running its course.

He watched on TV.

"It was a tough moment," Johnson said. "I knew everyone on the D-line would have to step up."

Above all others, it seems like Johnson did.

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He enrolled last summer at around 325 pounds. As of gameweek, he was around 295, taking a step toward answering a conditioning question that probably made him look last season like a player who wouldn't be getting his chance any time soon.

But whether Neal's injury was the impetus or not, Johnson changed his standing for the better, starting with his physical progress.

"I didn't eat too well back home," said Johnson, who came to Purdue from Snider High School in Fort Wayne. "I came here and got a lot of help from our nutritionist (Lauren Link). We sat down and talked, made a great plan, and stuck to the plan and just worked.

"It was my support system back home, too. They always told me to keep pushing, no matter how much it hurt, to keep pushing. And then everybody in our D-line room, they helped me. When they'd see me eat bad, they'd help me out, help me eat better, and push me every day."

The benefits for Johnson have been typical. He says he moves better and can play better, longer and more often, and that the weight shed hasn't really affected the width and raw size he could always fall back on in high school.

Without Neal, that's precisely what Purdue is missing in the middle of its defensive line. A case could be made that the senior is the Boilermakers' most irreplaceable defensive piece, a player who might not accumulate much in the way of statistics, as is the nature of his position, but could be counted on to occupy enough space and blocks to free those around him to do so, and in so doing provided an essential element.

"Gap integrity, holding my gap, then just making the plays that come to me," Johnson said of his role in Neal's absence. "That's my job at nose, to eat up blocks for my guys behind me to stay clean."

Johnson is listed No. 1 at the position, but the likely scenario is he heads a time share of sorts at his position, with redshirt freshman Jack Sullivan and sophomore Jeff Marks listed on Purdue's depth chart as reserves at nose tackle, though both are listed at just 270 pounds, non-traditional weight for that spot.

Johnson may not get the only crack, but he'll get first crack, it seems, but that he's getting on the field at all speaks to how far he's come since his redshirt season and a spring season in which he did not appear positioned for this opportunity any time soon, even with Neal out. Johnson was basically Purdue's fifth tackle in the spring, without Neal, and while Sullivan battled illness.

"It jumped on me a little bit," Johnson said of this opportunity. "Spring ball, I was active, but I wasn't as active as I am now. Then camp came around and I told myself I had to get to playing, I had to get in the mix, and the opportunity came and I took it."

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